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IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


OR, 


THE     ORIGIN     OF     MAN 


BY 


WILLIAM    DENTON, 

AUTHOR  OF  "our  PLANET,"   "  SOUL  OF  THINGS,"   "GENESIS 
AND   GEOLOGY,"    ETC. 


WELLESLEY,  MASS.: 
DENTON    PUBLISHING    COMPANY. 

1882. 


Copyright,  i88r. 
By  WILLIAM    DENTON. 


Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  Rand,  Avery,  St"  Co., 
IJJ  Franklin  Street,  Boston. 


INTRODUCTION. 


In  this  volume  I  present  to  the    public    substantially 
what  I  have  been  presenting  in  my  lectures  for  more  than 
twenty-five   years,  giving   here,  however,  greater  promi- 
nence to  the  spiritual  origin  of  man ;  for  the  question  of 
man's  natural  origin  is  generally  decided  in  the  affirma- 
tive, and  the  great  question  now  is  as  to  the  means  by 
which  the  result  was  naturally  produced.     The  writino-s 
of  Lyell  taught  me  in  youth  that  the  present  condition 
of  our  planet  is  the  result,  not  of  miracuk)us  achieve- 
ment a  few  thousand  years  ago,  but  of  the  operation  of 
natural    causes    during    many    millions    of    years.      The 
"Vestiges  of  Creation"  first  led  me  to  believe  in  man's 
natural    origin  ;    and  my  own  investigations  in  mesmer- 
ism, spiritualism,  and  psychometry,  showed  me  the  de- 
fectiveness of  the  theories  advanced  by  Darwin,  Huxley, 
and  others  of  the  natural  selection  school.     Nobler  men 
do  not  live  than  some  of  them  are   in  many  respects  ; 
but  when  they  seek  to  account  for  the  existence  of  all 
organic  forms,  and  entirely  ignore  the  spiritual  side  of  the 
universe,  infinitely  its  most  important  side,  their  theories 

3 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

cannot  be  otherwise  than  most  radically  defective.  Sci- 
entific men  run  in  ruts,  as  theologians  so  generally  do  : 
hence  the  popularity  of  Darwinism  to-day.  But,  with  a 
knowledge  of  the  spiritual  in  the  universe  and  in  man, 
there  will  come  a  great  modification  of  the  views  of 
naturalists  regarding  the  origin  of  organic  forms. 

This  work  is  written  for  the  general  reading  public,  and 
is  made  as  plain  as  possible,  that  the  average  reader  may 
understand  its  arguments,  which  I  shall  be  very  glad  to 
see  overthrown  if  they  are  not  in  agreement  with  abso- 
lute truth. 

Twenty-two  years  ago  I  had  a  discussion  with  Mr.  Gar- 
field, now  president-elect,  on  the  subject  of  man's  origin, 
many  false  reports  of  which  have  been  published  in  some 
of  his  biographies,  and  in  campaign  documents  in  various 
Republican  papers.  In  some  of  these  I  was  represented 
as  an  atheist ;  one  who  was  completely  discomfited, 
but  who  sought  during  the  debate  to  inveigle  his  oppo- 
nent into  the  discussion  of  subjects  not  related  to  the 
matter  in  debate.  Every  statement  is  utterly  false.  In 
that  debate  I  took  the  affirmative  of  the  following  propo- 
sition :  "  Man,  animals,  and  vegetables  are  the  product 
of  spontaneous  generation  and  progressive  development ; 
and  there  is  no  evidence  that  there  was  any  direct  crea- 
tive act  on  this  planet."  Mr.  Garfield  took  the  negative, 
which  required  him  to  present  evidence  of  direct  creative 
action  :  this  he  neither  did,  nor  attempted  to  do.     If  Mr. 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

Garfield  then  believed  in  man's  miraculous  origin,  as 
given  in  the  book  from  which  he  took  the  texts  for  his 
sermons,  he  did  not  choose  to  defend  it,  for  reasons  best 
known  to  himself;  if  he  did  not  believe  it,  he  stood  before 
the  public  in  a  very  false  position.  Nearly  or  quite  every 
argument  used  by  me  in  the  twenty  speeches  made  in 
that  debate  are  given  in  this  volume,  to  which  Mr.  Gar- 
field was  utterly  unable  satisfactorily  to  reply,  and  to 
which,  I  venture  to  say,  neither  he  nor  his  friends  can 
now  reply. 

I  trust  the  time  will  come  in  our  Republic  when  it  will 
not  be  considered  necessary  to  lie,  either  to  vilify  or 
glorify  a  candidate  for  its  presidency. 

WILLIAM    DENTON. 
Wellesley,  Mass.,  Dec.  5,  1880. 


CONTENTS. 


MAN'S   NATURAL   ORIGIN. 

Natural  Laws 17-46 

Vitality 17-26 

Variation 26-28 

Tendency 28-30 

Hereditary  Transmission 30-32 

Modification 32-39 

Symmetry 39-41 

Natural  Selection 41-46 

Pointers  indicating  Man's  Natural  Origin. 

Metamorphosis  of  Animals 46-58 

Anatomical  Similarity '     58-61 

Linking  Forms 61-65 

Rudimentary  Organs 66-70 

Paleontological  Resemblance 70-72 

Geological  Succession 72-74 

Insular  Organic  Resemblance 74-76 

Antiquity  of  Man 76-91 

Brutal  Characteristics 9^-97 

Objections  to  Man's  Natural  Origin      .        .        .  97-115 


8  CONTENTS. 

MAN'S   SPIRITUAL   ORIGIN. 

Pointers  indicating  Man's  Spiritual  Origin         .  ii 5-187 

Man-ward  Progress  of  Our  Planet        .        .        .  116-133 

The  Race  Development  of  Animals        .        .        .  133-136 

Organic  Distribution 136-146 

Persistency  of  Type 146-155 

Multiplicity  of  Human  Origins       ....  155-167 

Language 167-176 

Tendency  to  Beauty 176-178 

Human  Faculties 178-179 

Spiritual  Faculties •       .  179-187 


IS   DARWIN   RIGHT? 

OR,    THE     ORIGIN     OF     MAN. 


MAN'S    NATURAL   ORIGIN. 

We  live  in  a  world  teeming  with  life.  On  the  moun- 
tain-top, where  winter  reigns  forever,  with  only  snow  for 
mould,  there  grow  luxuriantly  beautiful  organic  forms ; 
the  deep  sea  caves,  illuminated  only  by  the  light  that  has 
struggled  through  a  thousand  fathoms  of  water,  are 
crowded  with  tenants ;  sixteen  hundred  feet  below  the 
surface  of  the  ground,  in  the  darksome  mine,  lighted 
only  by  the  occasional  glimmer  of  a  miner's  candle,  grow 
snow-white  fungi  on  the  massive  timbers  that  support  the 
shelving  roof.  Vegetable  life :  the  pine  clothing  the 
mountain-side,  the  ash  in  the  swamp,  the  chestnut  on 
the  ridge,  the  feathery  palm,  grass  rolling  in  verdant 
waves,  the  fringing  fern,  the  carpeting  moss,  the  clinging 
lichen.  Animal  life  :  the  humped  buffalo  feeding  on  the 
prairie,  the  lion  lurking  in  the  jungle,  bears  berrying 
among  the  bushes,  sea-fowl  overshadowing  the  rocky  islet 

9 


lo  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

like  a  cloud,  seals  scrambling  over  the  rocks,  and  fishes 
in  shoals  moving  through  the  waters.  Life  within  life  : 
animalcules  everywhere,  too  small  to  be  seen  by  the 
unassisted  eye,  but  feeding  on  every  leaf,  and  swimming 
in  every  drop.  Man,  monarch  of  all,  inquiring.  Whence 
these  various  living  forms,  and  how  came  I  into  exist- 
ence? One  of  the  first  questions  of  lisping  infancy,  and 
often  the  subject  of  greatest  interest  to  the  aged  sage. 

Answers  to  these  questions,  however  numerous,  range 
themselves  into  two  divisions ;  those  of  the  one  ascrib- 
ing all  organic  existences  to  the  operation  of  natural  law, 
and  the  other  to  miracle.  There  is  nothing  that  the 
study  of  natural  science  so  profoundly  impresses  upon 
the  human  mind  as  the  universality  and  continuous  oper- 
ation of  law.  The  more  we  become  familiar  with  the 
heavens  and  the  earth,  the  more  clearly  we  see  their 
varied  phenomena  to  be  the  offspring  of  natural  causes  : 
indeed,  the  very  existence  of  our  planet  and  of  similar 
bodies  in  space  is  now  generally  attributed  to  their 
action.  Herschel,  La  Place,  Comte,  Humboldt,  Mitch- 
ell, Agassiz,  and,  indeed,  almost  every  scientific  person 
familiar  with  the  discoveries  of  astronomy  and  the  facts 
of  geology,  have  been  led  to  believe  that  our  planet,  as 
well  as  the  whole  solar  and  astral  systems,  came  into  their 
present  form  by  the  operation  of  law. 

Whirled  from  the  sun  probably,  as  drops  are  from  a 
revolving  grindstone,  our  planet  was,  by  the  law  of  grav- 


OK,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  \\ 

itation,  moulded  into  its  present  shape.     As  it  cooled,  a 
rocky  crust  formed  upon  its  surface  by  the  operation  of 
the  law   of  cohesion,  which   binds    particles    of  matter 
together  and  forms  solid  bodies.     Thus  ice  is  produced 
in    winter,  and    rock   from   the    liquid  vomited   out   of 
the  volcano.     In  that  rocky  crust  we  find  hundreds  of 
minerals,  produced  by  the  law  of  chemical  affinity,  which 
unites  unlike  particles  of  matter,  and  by  their  union  pro- 
duces   new  substances.     Oxygen,  an   invisible  gas,  and 
calcium,    a    yellowish-white    metal,   combine,   and    form 
lime ;   lime  and  sulphuric  acid  unite,  and  produce  gyp- 
sum ;  oxygen  and  silicon  are  changed  into  silica,  which 
we  see  in  the  form  of  quartz  and  flint,  and   the   more 
precious  forms  of  agate,  amethyst,  and  opal.     Many  of 
the  minerals  thus  formed  are  in  symmetrical  shapes,  such 
as  cubes,  octagons,  and  hexagonal  prisms  \  and  in  them 
we  see  the  operation  of  another  law,  that  of  crystalliza- 
tion,  by  which   mineral  atoms,   under   favorable    condi- 
tions, arrange  themselves  in  beautiful  order,  so  that  when 
the  substance  is  known,  and  the  conditions  surrounding 
it,  we  can  tell  with  certainty  the  shape  that  it  will  assume. 
When  we  thus  learn  that  law  has  been  operating  for 
millions  of  years,  rounding  the  globe,  forming  its  crust, 
producing  the  various  minerals  that  constitute  the  sub- 
stance of  that  crust,  and  shaping  them  into  symmetrical 
forms,  what  more  natural  than  to  believe  that  the  domain 
of  law  extends    over  the  organic  productions  that  sue- 


12  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

ceeded  these?  The  operation  of  cohesion  depends 
upon  the  previous  operation  of  gravitation  ;  for,  unless 
gravitation  brought  the  particles  of  matter  near,  cohesion 
could  not  bind  them ;  the  operation  of  chemical  affinity, 
in  the  production  of  mineral  substances,  depends  upon 
the  previous  operation  of  cohesion ;  no  lime  could  be 
formed  by  the  union  of  oxygen  and  calcium,  if  cohesion 
had  not  first  brought  the  particles  of  calcium  together ; 
neither  could  crystallization  produce  its  forms,  unless  the 
other  laws  had  pre-existed  and  pre-operated.  Hence  we 
have  a  natural  pyramid,  of  which  gravitation  is  the  base, 
and  crystallization  the  summit. 

If  these  are  all  natural,  if  no  miraculous  agency  is 
concerned  in  their  manifestation,  why,  when  we  advance 
but  a  step  beyond,  should  we  drag  in  miracle  to  account 
for  what  we  behold?  Immediately  above  crystallization 
is  vegetable  and  animal  life ;  above  organic  life,  sensa- 
tion ;  and  above  sensation,  reason ;  and  why  may  not 
these  additions  to  the  pyramid  be  just  as  natural  as  the 
underlying  courses? 

Where  shall  we  call  in  miracle  to  aid  in  its  erection  ? 
There  seems  to  be  no  greater  step  from  crystallization  as 
seen  on  a  window-pane  in  a  frosty  morning,  or  in  the 
dendritic  forms  which  the  oxide  of  manganese  occa- 
sionally assumes  (Figs,  i  to  3),  to  the  simplest  forms  of 
life,  such  as  the  jelly-like  amoeba,  than  there  is  from  the 
amorphous  mass  of  quartz  which  cohesion  produces,  to 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  13 

the  transparent  hexagonal  prism,  which  is  the  product  of 
crystalHzation. 

Why  should  we  consider  the  crystal,  with  its  gleaming 
sides,  to  be  natural,  —  the  product  of  law,  —  and  call  in 
the  supernatural  to  account  for  a  being  so  low  in  the  scale 
of  existence  that  it  does  not  even  possess  a  stomach,  and 
appears  to  be  as  simple  in  structure  as  a  drop  of  gum  ? 


Fig.  1.  Fig.  2.  Fig.  3. 

Fig.  I.  Dendrite    on    Slate;    2.  Dendrite  on   Chert;    3.  Dendrite   on   Sienite. 
(Original.) 

Breathe  on  the  window-pane  on  a  cold  winter's  morn- 
ing, and  mark  the  result.  Obedient  to  the  law  of  crystal- 
lization, see  how  those  particles  of  frozen  moisture  range 
themselves  in  beautiful  order  !  No  regiment  ever  moved 
at  the  word  of  command  with  greater  precision,  no  tree 
ever  leafed  or  blossomed  into  more  perfect  beauty,  than 
these  arborescent  crystals,  that,  but  for  their  frequent 
appearance,  would   astonish    and    delight    us.     Examine 


14 


/S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


the  snow-flakes  that  drop  by  milHons  at  our  feet  (Fig.  4). 
When  particles  were  first  arranged  into  an  organic  being, 
is  it  not  probable  that  the  process  was  just  as  natural  in 
that  case  as  in  the  others? 

Nearly  all  intelligent  persons  now  acknowledge  that 
the  rocks  composing  the  earth's  crust  were  formed  by  the 
operation  of  natural  law ;  granitic  rocks  by  the  slow  cool- 
ing  of  fiery  fluid  matter  under  pressure ;    metamorphic 


Fig.  4.     Snow-Flakes. 


rocks  from  the  decomposition  and  disintegration  of  the 
granitic,  and  the  re-formation  and  crystallization  of  the 
material ;  and  the  fossiliferous  rocks  by  the  agency  of 
water,  and  the  assistance  of  plants  and  animals. 

No  person  at  all  acquainted  with  geology  now  believes 
that  seas,  rivers,  lakes,  and  mountains  were  made  by 
miracle,  though  this  notion  was  once  very  common.  In 
accordance  with  law,  the  mountains  were  heaved,  the 
ocean's  bed  hollowed,  the  valleys  formed  ;  by  its  opera- 
tion we  have  sunlight  and  darkness,  thunder,  lightning, 
and  storms ;  by  it  rivers  run,  oceans  ebb  and  flow,  and 


OK,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  15 

the  wide  domain  of  life  is  under  its  continual  jurisdic- 
tion. 

But  a  few  years  ago  the  thunder's  roll  in  the  heavens 
was  the  voice  of  a  personal  deity ;  the  lightning's  flash 
was  the  glare  of  his  angry  eye ;  the  tornado,  that  found  a 
paradise  before  it  and  left  a  desert  behind  it,  was  the 
blast  of  his  nostrils ;  and  the  earthquake,  that  swallowed 
a  city  at  a  gulp,  was  his  agent  to  punish  a  guilty  peo- 
ple. Now,  back  of  the  lightning  and  thunder,  we  dis- 
cover the  electricity  that  goes  up  with  the  ascending 
vapor :  the  intensely  heated  atmosphere  precedes  the 
hurricane,  and  beneath  the  earthquake  lies  the  cooling 
globe.  The  oil  that  we  burn  in  our  lamps,  the  coal  we 
consume  in  our  stoves,  the  salt,  the  iron,  the  silver,  and 
the  gold,  were  all  deposited  where  we  find  them  by  natu- 
ral causes.  From  the  rounded  acorn,  a  hundred  of 
which  may  be  carried  in  the  pocket,  grows  by  impercepti- 
ble degrees  the  oak,  whose  branches  overspread  an  acre ; 
and  from  an  almost  invisible  tgg  a  Lyell  is  developed, 
who  reveals  the  secrets  of  the  earth's  deep  foundations, 
and  a  Humboldt,  before  whom  the  whole  scientific  realm 
lies  hke  a  map.  And  though  provinces  of  nature  have 
been  repeatedly  set  aside,  and  we  have  been  solemnly 
assured  that  they  were  exceptions  to  the  rule,  yet,  as 
science  has  advanced,  these  have  become  so  narrowed, 
we  may  be  sure  that  universal  intelligence  will  make  all 
men  eventually  believers  in  the  universal  operation  of 
natural  law. 


1 6  IS  DARWIN  RIG II r? 

These  laws  are,  as  I  believe,  but  the  modes  of  opera- 
tion of  an  unseen,  but  ever  present,  ever  active,  and 
what,  for  want  of  a  better  word,  we  must  call  intelligent, 
spirit ;  but  a  spirit  which,  as  far  as  we  can  tell  by  our 
own  experience  and  that  of  our  fellows,  operates  invaria- 
bly by  law  :  and  it  is  therefore  most  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  all  forms  of  life,  including  man,  have  come  into 
existence  by  natural  processes,  which  we  may  reasonably 
suppose  are  still  at  work  upon  our  globe. 

The  great  mistake  that  many  scientists  as  well  as  theo- 
logians appear  to  me  to  make,  is  in  supposing  that  this  is 
a  dead  world,  in  a  dead  universe,  and  only  made  alive  by 
the  operation  of  some  exterior  force.  Darwin  thinks  that 
all  living  beings  came  from  one  or  a  few  forms,  "  into 
which  life  was  first  breathed  ;  "  thus  giving  us  a  dead 
world,  into  which  an  exterior  power  breathed  life.  If 
this  was  ever  done,  the  great  probability  is  that  life  was 
breathed  into  a  man.  Why  should  a  miracle-worker 
bridge  the  chasm  between  death  and  life  for  an  invisible 
monad,  when  the  bridge  would  just  as  easily  carry  a 
man  ? 

The  difference  between  the  universe  such  persons  be- 
lieve in,  and  that  in  which  we  live,  is  great  as  the  differ- 
ence between  a  natural  tree  and  an  artificial  one.  In  the 
artificial  tree,  made  in  a  day,  a  wooden  trunk  is  fashioned, 
holes  are  bored,  limbs  inserted,  twigs  put  into  them,  and 
leaves  and  fruit  attached.     It  may  appear  beautiful ;  but 


OR,    THE  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  17 

there  is  no  life  in  its  heart,  no  sap  in  its  branches,  no 
circulation  through  its  leaves.  It  is  no  more  a  tree  than 
the  chair  in  which  its  maker  sits.  The  natural  tree  re- 
quires centuries  for  its  perfection,  but  it  is  alive  from 
deepest  radicle  to  topmost  leaf.  Break  a  branch,  and 
every  rootlet  feels  and  resp)onds  to  the  demand  for  mate- 
rial to  repair  damages.  Day  and  night  the  living  currents 
flow  through  its  veins,  bearing  color  to  the  blossom,  honey 
to  its  cup,  sugar  to  the  fruit,  and  down  for  its  cheek  to 
ward  off  the  attacks  of  the  insect  robber.  Strip  off  every 
leaf,  and  it  re-clothes  itself;  -and,  though  winter  makes  it 
bare  a  hundred  times,  a  hundred  times  it  renews  its 
beauty.  No  less  alive  is  the  world  in  which  we  dwell, 
and  the  universe  of  Avhich  it  forms  to  us  such  an  impor- 
tant part ;  and  it  is  this  that  rendered  man  a  possibility 
upon  our  planet. 

NATURAL   LAWS. 

YITALriY. 

The  first  agent  that  appears  to  have  been,  and  to  be 
concerned  in  the  production  of  living  beings,  is  Vitality. 
As  there  is  a  crystallizing  force,  that  under  favorable 
conditions  produces  crystals,  without  preceding  crystallic 
germs  from  which  they  grew,  so  there  appears  to  be 
a  life-producing  force,  which,  from  what  some  call 
"dead  matter,"  under  favorable  circumstances  produces 


1 8  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

animals  and  vegetables  in  their  simplest  forms.  Philip 
Henry  Gosse,  the  well-known  English  naturalist,  says, 
"  If  we  take  a  bunch  of  leaves^  of  the  common  sage  for 
example,  or  a  few  twigs  of  hay,  and,  tying  them  into  a 
bundle,  suspend  them  in  a  jar  of  water,  allowing  the  con- 
tents to  remain  untouched,  but  exposed  to  the  air,  some 
interesting  results  will  follow.  If  we  examine  it  on  the 
second  day  we  shall  find  a  sort  of  scum  covering  the  sur- 
face, and  the  whole  fluid  becoming  turbid  and  slightly 
tinged  with  green.  If  now  we  take  with  the  point  of  a 
quill  or  pin  a  minute  drop  pf  this  liquid,  and  examine  it 
with  a  good  microscope  under  a  magnifying  power  of 
about  two  hundred  diameters,  we  discover  the  water  to 
be  swarming  with  animal  life." 

Wherever  we  place  organic  substances  in  decay,  if  the 
air  in  never  so  small  a  quantity  can  get  at  them,  living 
beings  will  be  produced.  The  common  supposition  is 
that  germs  or  eggs  floating  in  the  atmosphere  (frop  into 
the  vegetable  infusions,  and  there  find  conditions  favor- 
able for  their  development.  This  is  of  course  possible  : 
it  is  even  probable.  To  know  whether  they  do,  or  not, 
has  been  the  aim  of  a  great  many  distinguished  experi- 
menters, who  are  about  equally  divided  in  opinion. 

In  July,  1862,  Professor  Wyman  of  Harvard  College, 
Cambridge,  published  in  "  The  American  Journal  of 
Science  "  the  results  of  thirty-seven  experiments,  under- 
taken   for   the    purpose    of  determining   whether   living 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  19 

beings  could  be  developed  in  a  closely-sealed  vessel, 
where  previously  neidier  life  nor  the  germs  of  life  existed. 

The  juice  of  beef  and  mutton,  solutions  of  sugar  and 
gelatine,  and  some  other  substances,  were  used  in  these 
experiments.  In  all  of  them  the  juice  and  solutions 
were  exposed  to  the  heat  of  boiling  water,  and  in  four  of 
them  to  a  heat  of  from  250°  to  307°,  or  from  38°  to  95° 
above  the  boihng-point,  from  fifteen  minutes  to  two 
hours.  In  some  cases  the  necks  of  the  glass  vessels  con- 
taining the  solutions  were  heated  red-hot  and  twisted 
round  before  the  exposure  to  the  heat ;  and  in  others, 
after  boiling,  the  air  was  allowed  to  pass  into  the  vessels 
through  an  iron  tube  filled  with  wires  heated  to  red- 
ness, or  through  a  glass  tube  filled  with  asbestos  and 
platinum-sponge  red-hot ;  so  that  if  any  living  germs  had 
existed  in  the  air  they  would  have  been  destroyed  in  their 
passage.  After  being  thus  filled  with  air,  these  latter 
vessels  were  also  hermetically  sealed,  and  left  in  a  warm 
apartment. 

In  the  course  of  a  few  days  or  weeks,  life  was  found 
in  all  of  them  except  two,  and  even  in  one  that  was 
heated  to  307°,  which  is  far  beyond  what  experiment  has 
demonstrated  to  be  the  limit  of  vital  endurance. 

Professor  Clark  of  Harvard  College,  who  gives  a  de- 
tailed account  of  these  experiments,  says,  ^''  The  fact  that 
the  experiments  with  the  sealed  flasks  proved,  if  any 
thing  can   be    proved   beyond   the  reach  of  change  or 


20  ZS-  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

improvement,  is  that  beings  with  motion,  undoubted 
living  beings,  were  produced  where  life  could  not  have 
existed  previously.^  No  failures  to  obtain  living  beings 
under  any  circumstances  can  overthrow  the  evidences  of 
spontaneous  generation  furnished  by  such  experiments  as 
these. 

More   recently  Dr.    Bastian    has  experimented   under 
conditions   still   more  unfavorable.     He   placed   boiling 


^         \'^\^'^       -°-°'^ 


oo 
o 


®  ^5^'''^»  ^'^ 


Fig.  s.  Some  of  the  most  common  forms  of  life,  supposed  to  have  been  produced 
spontaneously:  Bacteria,  Torulce,  &c.,  8oo  times  the  natural  size.  (After 
Bastian.) 

solutions  of  sugar,  carbonate  of  ammonia,  phosphate  of 
soda,  and  turnip-juice,  in  glass  vessels ;  and,  while  the 
steam  from  them  was  issuing  from  the  necks  of  the  ves- 
sels, they  were  hermetically  sealed,  and  placed  in  an  iron 
digester,  where  they  were  exposed  for  four  hours  to  a 
heat  of  295°  Fahrenheit.     Yet  even  under  these  extreme 

*  Mind  in  Nature,  p.  a6. 


0R\    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


21 


conditions  minute  organic  forms  were  found  in  the  liquids 
after  a  few  days  ^   (Figs.  5  and  6). 

Professor  Cantoni  of  Pavia  has  obtained  infusoria  in 
the  fluids  of  hermetically  sealed  flasks,  after  an  exposure 
in  a  Papin's  digester  to  a  temperature  of  242°  F.^ 

Some  remarks  of  Mr.  Wallace  regarding  the  experi- 
ments of  Bastian,  detailed  in  his  "  Beginnings  of  Life," 
are  valuable.  "  Some  of  these  comparative  experiments 
are  very  suggestive.     Hay  infusion,  for  instance,  exposed 


Fig.  6.  Bacteria,  Toruhe,  and  other  infusoria,  found  in  an  infusion  of  commoa 
cress,  in  an  air-tight  flask,  after  it  was  heated  to  272°  F.  for  twenty  minutes. 
Magnified  800  times.     (After  F)astian.) 

to  air,  produced  abundance  of  bacteria  in  forty-eight 
hours,  and  these  had  increased  considerably  in  sixty- 
eight  hours.  A  similar  infusion,  sealed  up  after  the 
fluid  became  cold,  behaved  in  a  similar  manner.  The 
same  in  a  flask  with  a  neck  two  feet  long,  and  having 
eight  flexures,  remained  unchanged  for  twelve  days.  A 
similar  infusion,  hermetically  sealed  during  ebullition,  on 
the    other  hand,  showed    turbidity  in    forty- eight  hours, 

1  Beginnings  of  Life,  vol.  i.,  pp.  456-475.     ^  Beginnings  of  Life,  vol.  i.,  p.  436. 


22  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

which  subsequently  increased,  and  bacteria,  vibriones, 
leptothrix,  and  torulce  were  found  in  abundance.  Here, 
then,  whatever  inference  may  be  drawn  from  the  first 
three  experiments  is  entirely  negatived  by  the  fourth. 
Other  experiments  show  that  ammonia-tartrate  solution, 
sealed  in  vacuo,  at  a  temperature  of  90°  F.,  produced  in 
eighty-four  hours  abundance  of  bacteria ;  while  the  same 
solution,  if  boiled  at  212°  F.,  and  exposed  to  the  air  in 
flasks  covered  with  paper  caps,  remained  quite  clear  for 
nine  days ;  yet  as  soon  as  it  was  inoculated  with  living 
bacteria,  they  increased  rapidly,  and  produced  turbidity. 
These,  and  a  number  of  other  equally  suggestive  experi- 
ments, indicate  that  the  conditions  favorable  to  the  oiigin 
and  to  the  increase  of  these  low  forms,  are  not  always 
identical.  Both  are  very  complex  ;  and  we  cannot  avoid 
the  conclusion  that  the  advocates  of  the  universal  germ 
theory  have  been  somewhat  hasty  in  founding  their  doc- 
trine upon  insufiicient  data,  for  the  most  part  of  a  nega- 
tive character." 

Thousands  of  experiments  have  been  tried,  first  and 
last,  to  settle  this  question  whether  living  beings  are  pro- 
duced without  parentage  ;  yet,  in  the  estimation  of  many 
eminent  scientists,  it  remains  undecided  yet.  Pasteur, 
Tyndall,  Huxley,  and  others,  do  not  believe  we  have  any 
evidence  of  life  without  pre-existent  life  to  produce  it ; 
while  on  the  other  side  we  have  Bastian,  the  author  of 
"The  Beginnings  of  Life,"  Clark,  Wyman,  some  of  whose 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  23 

experiments  have  been  given,  Draper,  the  well-known 
physiologist,  Wallace,  and  Owen,  the  greatest  hving  com- 
parative anatomist. 

The  fact  that  life  abounds  wherever  conditions  are 
favorable  for  its  development,  that  even  hot  springs  have 
their  tenants,  that  every  island  is  peopled,  and  every  lake 
and  stream  has  living  forms  adapted  to  its  waters,  indi- 
cates that  life  as  naturally  develops  by  virtue  of  inherent 
law,  as  crystals,  under  favorable  conditions,  from  mineral 
solutions. 

In  the  production  of  crystals  we  see  many  of  the 
phenomena  which  are  displayed  in  the  production  and 
growth  of  organized  beings.  All  crystals  are  formed 
of  small,  angular  solids,  as  all  organized  bodies  are  of 
cells.  There  has  been  a  germ  controversy  regarding  the 
formation  of  crystals,  as  there  is  now  one  regarding  the 
formation  of  living  beings ;  some  chemists  supposing 
that  minute  crystals  floating  in  the  air  were  the  cause  of 
crystallization  in  mineral  solutions.^  As  animals  can  be 
modified  by  surrounding  conditions,  so  can  crystals. 
"  Common  salt  usually  crystallizes  in  the  form  of  a  cube ; 
but,  if  urine  be  present  in  the  solution,  it  takes  the  fonii 
of  the  octahedron."-  When  carbonate  of  lime  is  slowly 
precipitated  in  viscid  solutions  of  gum,  instead  of  the 
particles  arranging  themselves  in  octahedral  or  hexagonal 
crystals,   the    combined    particles   assume    the    form    of 

*  Beginnings  of  Life,  vol.  i.,  p.  300.  ^  Youmans'  New  Chemistry,  p.  50. 


24  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

calculi,  with  distinct  concentric  layers.  Crystals  can 
even  make  repairs,  so  that  when  an  angle  is  broken,  it 
will  be  replaced.  Mr.  Rainey,  quoted  by  Bastian,^  tells 
us  of  the  appearance  of  the  first  visible  globules,  when 
carbonate  of  lime  is  precipitated  in  a  viscid  solution. 
"  The  appearance  which  is  first  visible  is  a  faint  cloudi- 
ness ;  the  particles  are  too  small  to  be  seen  by  the  micro- 
scope ;  in  a  few  hours  exquisitely  minute  globes  appear, 
too  small  to  be  measured,  then  dumb-bell-like  bodies 
and  egg-shaped  particles  with  them,  and  these  gradually 
enlarge."  In  fact,  the  appearances  are  at  first  almost 
identical  with  those  that  are  seen  in  vegetable  infusions, 
as  organisms  gradually  form  in  them. 

Tyndall's  experiments  seem  to  many  persons  to  de- 
monstrate that  all  living  beings  must  come  from  germs. 
He  placed  in  sixty  glass  flasks  an  infusion  of  turnip-juice. 
The  ends  of  the  flasks  were  drawn  out  to  a  fine  point ; 
and,  after  the  infusion  had  boiled  for  five  minutes,  the 
small  end  was  closed  by  melting  the  glass  with  a  blow- 
pipe. They  were  taken  to  the  Alps,  in  Switzerland,  in 
the  month  of  July.  The  ends  of  four  of  them  had  been 
broken  on  the  way,  and  these  were  full  of  life ;  the  rest, 
except  two  that  were  destroyed,  were  all  clear.  The  fifty- 
four  were  exposed  to  the  sun  by  day,  and  placed  in  a  warm 
kitchen  at  night :  four  were  casually  broken,  but  the  fifty 
remained   perfectly  clear ;    there    was   no    life    in    them. 

1   Beginnings  of  Life,  vol.  i.,  p.  303. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  25 

Then  twenty-three  of  the  fifty  were  opened  in  a  hay-loft, 
and  the  remaining  twenty-seven  on  the  edge  of  a  diff 
overlooking  a  glacier.  All  the  flasks  were  then  placed  in 
a  warm  situation  near  a  stove,  with  the  necks  open ; 
and  in  three  days  twenty-one  out  of  the  twenty-three 
opened  in  the  hay-loft  were  filled  with  living  beings ; 
while  after  three  weeks  those  opened  near  the  glacier 
were  without  a  trace  of  life. 

It  is  evident  that  in  this  case  there  was  something  in 
the  air  of  the  hay-loft  that  was  favorable  to  the  develop- 
ment of  life  ;  but  it  by  no  means  follows  that  this  con- 
sisted of  germs  or  eggs.  The  experiments  of  Wyman, 
Mantagazzi,  Bastian,  and  a  host  of  others,  many  of 
whom  have  had  much  more  practice  than  Tyndall,  who 
have  found  living  beings  in  sealed  glass  vessels  after  they 
had  been  exposed  to  a  heat  much  more  than  sufficient  to 
kill  germs  if  they  had  existed,  can  never  be  negatived  by 
such  experiments  as  Tyndall's,  were  they  multipHed  a 
thousand-fold. 

In  the  flask  of  the  experimental  philosopher  to-day  we 
have,  apparently,  on  a  small  scale,  what  existed  on  the 
earth  during  the  early  geologic  periods  on  a  large  scale ; 
and,  if  living  beings  are  produced  to-day  by  the  opera- 
tion of  natural  causes,  there  is  no  need  to  call  in  miracle 
to  account  for  their  appearance  long  ago. 

It  may  be  objected  that  there  existed  no  juice  of  beef 
or  mutton,  infusions  of  vegetable  matter,  nor  solutions  of 


26  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

minerals  produced  from  organic  substances,  in  the  early 
condition  of  our  planet,  as  there  were  in  the  sealed  flasks 
of  the  experimenters.  True ;  but  there  were  warm 
oceans,  containing  matter  in  an  extremely  fine  state  of 
subdivision  from  the  action  of  water  on  rock  for  ages, 
and  containing  as  much  life  as  infusions  do  when  sub- 
jected for  hours  to  a  heat  of  295°.  The  Hquids  in  the 
flasks,  we  may  reasonably  suppose,  are  only  favorable  to 
the  development  of  life,  because  they  give  us  the  neces- 
sary components  of  organic  bodies  in  an  extremely 
divided  state.  In  both  cases  the  matter  is  destitute  of 
life ;  and  the  production  of  living  beings  in  unorganized 
matter,  to-day,  reveals  to  us,  apparently,  how  it  came 
into  existence  in  the  beginning. 

VARIATION. 

Vital  force,  however,  appears  only  to  produce  life  in 
extremely  minute  forms ;  and  these,  by  the  ordinary 
process  of  generation,  could  only  continue  to  produce 
similar  forms.  There  must  have  been  a  power  and  a 
disposition  to  deviate  from  the  original  stock,  or  the  first 
living  beings  would  have  perpetuated  only  forms  similar 
to  themselves,  and  filled  the  world  forever.  But  there  is 
in  nature  a  disposition  to  vary,  or  a  law  of  Variation. 
We  say  like  produces  like  ;  and  this  is  true,  but  like  pro- 
duces unlike,  also  :  the  boy  is  like  his  father ;  but  no  boy 
is  exactly  like  his  father,  nor  girl  like  her  mother ;  and  in 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  27 

most  large  families,  and  some  small  ones,  there  will  be  a 
child  of  whom  the  father  asks,  "Who  does  that  child 
take  after  ?  I  am  sure  it  is  no  one  on  our  side  of  the 
house  ;  "  and  the  mother  is  equally  sure  that  it  is  no  one 
on  her  side  of  the  house.  A  variation  in  the  offspring 
has  made  its  appearance,  for  which  the  progenitors  are 
unable  to  account.  The  seeds  of  apples  and  peaches, 
as  we  know,  produce  fruits  that  differ  from  those  of  the 
parent  trees.  By  taking  advantage  of  the  tendency  in 
plants  to  sport  into  varieties,  our  gardeners  are  constantly 
producing  new  flowers  and  improved  fruits. 

Dr.  Hooker,  quoted  by  Lyell,  says,  "The  element  of 
mutability  pervades  the  whole  vegetable  kingdom ;  no 
class,  no  order,  nor  genus  of  more  than  a  few  species, 
claims  absolute  exemption  from  it."  So  strong  is  the 
tendency  to  variation,  that  seedlings  from  fruit  of  the 
same  tree  and  in  the  same  season  differ  at  times  consid- 
erably. Col.  Le  Couteur,  who  paid  great  attention  to 
wheat-culture,  found  that  the  grains  of  wheat  in  the  same 
ear  differed  so  greatly  that  he  was  compelled,  in  his 
attempts  to  grow  the  best,  to  select  each  grain  separately.^ 
Van  Mons,  Darwin  informs  us,  "  reared  a  multitude  of 
varieties  from  the  seed  of  one  grape-vine,  which  was 
completely  separated  from  all  others,  so  that  there  could 
not,  at  least  in  this  generation,  have  been  any  crossing ; 
and  the  seedlings  presented  the  analogues  of  everv  kind, 

^  Animals  and  Plants  under  Domestication,  vol.  i.,  p.  378. 


2S  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

and  differed  in  almost  every  possible  character,  both  in 
the  fruit  and  foliage."  ^ 

In  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species  we  are  told  of  two 
flocks  of  Leicester  sheep,  kept  by  Mr.  Buckley  and  Mr. 
Burgess,  and  purely  bred  from  the  original  stock  of  Mr. 
Bakewell  for  upwards  of  fifty  years.  There  is  not  a 
suspicion  existing  in  the  mind  of  any  one  at  all  ac- 
quainted with  the  subject,  that  the  owner  of  either  of 
them  has  deviated  in  any  one  instance  from  the  pure 
blood  of  Mr.  Bakewell's  flock ;  and  yet  the  difference 
between  the  sheep  possessed  by  these  two  gentlemen  is 
so  great  that  they  have  the  appearance  of  being  quite 
different  varieties.^ 

TENDENCY. 

We  cannot,  however,  regard  variation  as  a  creator.  It 
may  change  the  color  of  a  snail's  shell,  but  how  could  it 
give  to  the  snail  a  fin  ?  it  may  modify  the  tail  of  a  fish, 
but  we  cannot  conceive  of  its  forming  a  foot ;  in  a  man 
it  may  give  a  longer  finger  or  toe,  but  it  could  not  put  an 
eye  at  the  end  of  his  finger,  or  an  ear  at  the  end  of  his 
toe.  Variation,  to  be  of  service  in  the  production  of  the 
higher  forms  of  organic  being,  from  the  simple  forms 
spontaneously  produced,  must  operate  in  a  definite  direc- 
tion, and  there  must  be  underlying  it  the  power  to  push 

^  Animals  and  Plants  under  Domestication,  vol.  i.,  p.  401. 
2  Origin  of  Species,  p.  39. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  29 

the  organic  form  subject  to  it  to  a  more  advanced  stage. 
How  could  an  animal  destitute  of  wings  vary  until  it 
became  a  bird?  Suppose  it  to  be  an  amphibian,  like  a 
frog,  variation  undirected  would  be  as  likely  to  operate  in 
an  infinite  variety  of  ways  as  in  the  direction  of  feathers 
and  wings.  Suppose  a  variation  in  a  frog  in  the  direction 
of  the  bird,  it  could  hardly  fail  to  be  a  detriment ;  and  the 
animal  in  which  it  appeared,  in  the  struggle  for  life,  would 
be  more  likely  to  die  than  to  live  and  perpetuate  the 
bird-like  peculiarity.  Pin-feathers  on  a  frog  would  nei- 
ther help  it  to  swim,  dive,  nor  jump ;  and,  the  more 
like  wings  its  forelegs  were,  the  less  use  they  would 
be  in  administering  to  its  necessities.  If  the  first  step  in 
the  direction  of  a  bird  could  be  taken,  for  which  no 
cause  can  be  imagined,  how  could  it  be  retained  till  the 
chance  came  among  an  infinite  number  of  another  varia- 
tion concurring  with  the  previous  one,  and  pushing  the 
animal  a  step  nearer  to  the  bird?  The  chances  are 
almost  -infinite  against  the  possibility  of  such  a  second 
step  being  taken.  How  long,  by  any  hap-hazard  process, 
would  it  be  before  an  amphibian  was  transformed  into  a 
bird  ?  Millions  of  concurring  steps,  balancing  each  other, 
would  be  necessary ;  and  it  would  seem  that  the  whole 
time  of  our  planet's  life  would  be  exhausted  before  more 
than  the  merest  beginning  could  be  made.  Behind 
variation  must  be  Tendency.  Without  the  eyes  of  tend- 
ency, variation  would  wander  bhndly  in  an  aimless  maze 


30  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

forever ;  with  this  for  a  guide  it  has  unerringly  struck  the 
road  to  fish  and  reptile,  beast  and  man.  Tendency  com- 
pels variation,  and  variation  in  certain  directions ;  form- 
ing steps  by  which  life  advances  to  the  highest  forms. 

HEREDITARY    TRANSMISSION. 

But,  unless  these  varieties  could  be  transmitted  to  the 
descendants  of  their  possessors,  they  would  die  with  them, 
and  never  influence  their  progeny.  Variation  has  be- 
come operative  in  producing  advanced  forms  of  life  by 
the  influence  of  another  law,  —  that  of  Hereditary  Trans- 
mission. The  existence  of  this  law  is  known  to  nearly 
all,  but  the  potency  of  its  influence  is  known  to  but  few. 
An  English  paper  informs  us  that  a  man  six  feet  six 
inches  in  height  was  summoned  before  a  court ;  and  the 
questions  asked  him  on  that  occasion  revealed  the  fact 
that  his  father  was  six  feet  three  inches,  his  mother  six 
feet,  and  his  four  brothers  and  sisters  averaged  six  feet 
three  inches. 

The  Jew  has  a  strongly  aquiline  nose,  and  this  nose  is 
represented  on  the  faces  of  Jews  in  Egyptian  paintings 
that  are  more  than  three  thousand  years  old.  The  very 
nose  that  figures  on  the  face  of  the  Jew  that  walks  down 
Broadway  to-day,  adorned  the  countenance  of  Abraham 
as  he  sat  at  the  door  of  his  tent  in  the  days  of  old. 

Early  in  the  last  century  a  child  was  born  in  Suffolk, 
Eng.,  with  semi-horny  excrescences   of  almost   half  an 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  31 

inch  in  length  thickly  growing  all  over  his  body.  The 
peculiarity  was  transmitted  to  his  children,  and  was  last 
heard  of  in  a  third  generation. 

The  persistence  of  mental  traits,  in  consequence  ap- 
parently of  the  operation  of  inheritance,  is  remarkable. 
As  Ribot  remarks,  "  The  French  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury are,  in  fact,  the  Gauls  described  by  Caesar.  In  the 
Commentaries,  in  Strabo,  in  Diodorus  Siculus,  we  find  all 
the  essential  traits  of  our  national  character :  love  of 
arms,  taste  for  every  thing  that  glitters,  extreme  levity 
of  mind,  incurable  vanity,  address,  great  readiness  of 
speech,  and  disposition  to  be  carried  away  by  phrases. 
There  are  in  Caesar  some  observations  which  might  have 
been  written  yesterday.  'The  Gauls,'  says  he,  'have  a 
love  of  revolution ;  they  allow  themselves  to  be  led  by 
false  reports  into  acts  they  afterwards  regret,  and  into 
decisions  on  the  most  important  events  ;  they  are  de- 
pressed by  reverses  ;  they  are  as  ready  to  go  to  war  with- 
out cause  as  they  are  weak  and  powerless  in  the  hour  of 
defeat.'  "  ^ 

So  strong  is  this  law  of  heredity,  that  even  accidental 
variations  and  artificial  deformities  are  at  times  trans- 
mitted. Ribot  tells  us  that  a  man  whose  right  hand  had 
suffered  an  injury  had  one  of  his  fingers  badly  set.  He 
had  several  sons,  each  of  whom  had  the  same  finger 
crooked.     He  quotes  Quatrefages,  who  tells  us  that  the 

1  Heredity,  p.  no. 


32  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

Esquimaux  cut  off  the  tails  of  the  dogs  they  harness  to 
their  sledges,  and  the  pups  are  often  born  tailless.-^  The 
tendency  to  transmit  a  perfect  form  is,  however,  much 
stronger  than  the  tendency  to  transmit  deformities,  or 
there  would  be  no  necessity  for  the  Jew  to  practise  cir- 
cumcision, or  the  descendants  of  many  generations  of 
shavers  to  torment  their  faces  with  a  razor. 

By  the  operation  of  the  law  of  vitality,  the  waters  of  the 
early  oceans  were  caused  to  swarm  with  minute  living 
beings.  By  the  law  of  variation,  governed  by  innate 
tendency,  these  commenced,  as  soon  as  they  began  to 
propagate,  to  deviate  from  the  ancestral  form  toward 
higher  organic  forms ;  and,  by  the  law  of  heredity,  the 
deviations  were  transmitted,  and  new  and  more  advanced 
forms  of  life  came  into  existence. 

The  law  of  hereditary  transmission  appears  at  first  to 
be  antagonistic  to  the  law  of  variation ;  for,  if  it  operated 
perfectly,  there  could  be  no  deviation  from  the  parental 
form ;  but  tendency,  operating  with  variation,  overrides 
heredity,  as  the  power  of  the  magnet  upholds  its  arma- 
ture contrary  to  the  operation  of  gravity. 

MODinCATION. 

In  addition  to  these  is  another  important  law,  that  of 
Modification.  A  pine  that  will  grow  in  a  temperate  cli- 
mate to  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet,  on  the  timber-line  of 

^  Heredity,  p.  9, 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  t^^ 

the  mountains  is  no  higher  than  a  man's  head,  though  its 
trunk  may  be  as  thick  as  his  body.  In  the  Southern 
States  the  Virginia  cherry  grows  to  the  height  of  one 
hundred  feet,  but  at  the  Great  Slave  Lake  it  is  but  five 
feet  high.  The  service-tree  in  Western  Virginia  is  fre- 
quently eighty  feet  high  :  on  the  Rocky  Mountains,  in 
Wyoming,  it  is  only  a  bush.  In  all  these  cases,  surround- 
ing conditions  have  modified  the  plant  subjected  to  them. 
The  cabbage  in  the  West  Indies  grows  to  be  a  small 
tree.  Animals  living  in  high  mountain  regions,  where  the 
air  is  rare,  have  lungs  adapted  to  the  atmosphere  they 
are  compelled  to  breathe.  Men  in  such  countries  have 
broader  shoulders  and  longer  trunks  than  those  living 
near  the  sea-level.  Lyell  tells  us  of  some  Englishmen 
who  were  carrying  on  mining  operations  at  a  high  level 
in  Mexico,  who  sent  to  England  for  greyhounds  of  the 
best  breed,  that  they  might  hunt  the  hares  which  abound- 
ed in  the  country.  It  was  found,  however,  that,  owing  to 
the  rarity  of  the  air,  the  greyhounds  were  compelled  to 
lie  down  and  gasp  for  breath,  while  the  hares  ran  off  with 
ease  and  left  them.  But  the  whelps  of  these  greyhounds, 
when  grown  up,  could  run  down  the  Mexican  hares  just 
as  easily  as  their  progenitors  had  done  English  hares  ;  for 
they  had  become  modified  to  suit  the  conditions  that 
surrounded  them.^ 

Of  the  cabbage  and  the  cauliflower  Lyell  says,  "  A  bit- 

1  Principles  of  Geology,  p.  594. 


34  ^S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

ter  plant,  with  wavy  sea-green  leaves,  has  been  taken 
from  the  sea-side,  where  it  grew  like  wild  charlock,  has 
been  transplanted  into  the  garden,  lost  its  saltness,  and 
has  been  metamorphosed  into  two  distinct  vegetables,  as 
unlike  each  other  as  each  is  to  the  parent  plant,  —  the 
red  cabbage  and  the  cauliflower."^  I  suppose  there  are 
persons,  who,  if  asked  to  name  which  of  all  the  plants  was 
most  likely  to  have  been  specially  created  for  the  service 
of  man,  would  unhesitatingly  reply,  the  cabbage  ;  and  yet 
the  cabbage  has  been  made  by  man,  out  of  a  plant  very 
unlike  the  modified  product. 

But  Lyell  remarks,  ''  It  is  easy  to  show  that  these  ex- 
traordinary varieties  could  seldom  arise,  and  could  never 
be  perpetuated  in  a  wild  state  for  many  generations,  under 
any  imaginable  combination  of  accidents."  They  show 
the  wonderful  power  of  surrounding  conditions  to  mould 
the  organic  forms  subjected  to  them ;  and  these  are  suffi- 
cient, as  we  know,  to  produce  differences  as  great  as 
those  that  distinguish  species ;  but,  apart  from  innate 
tendency,  it  is,  I  think,  extremely  difficult  to  pass  beyond 
this  step  in  a  progressive  direction. 

All  large  caves  have  tenants  which  have  become  modi- 
fied by  the  peculiarities  of  their  underground  life.  Pro- 
fessor Schiodte  discovered,  in  three  Austrian  caves,  the 
proteus,  a  wood-louse,  and  three  kinds  of  beetles,  all 
blind,  or  the  eyes  reduced  to  rudimentary  specks. 

^  Principles  of  Geology,  p.  588, 


OR,   THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  35 

In  the  Mammoth  Cave  is  a  bhnd  fish,  which  has  on 
the  exterior  no  visible  eyes.  We  are  told  by  some  that 
here  is  evidence  demonstrative  that  all  animals  were 
miraculously  formed  for  the  places  that  they  occupy. 
The  blind-fish  was  made  for  the  Mammoth  Cave ;  and 
the  Creator,  knowing  that  it  would  live  in  absolute  dark- 
ness, made  it  destitute  of  eyes.  When,  however,  we  ex- 
amine the  almost  transparent  blind-fish,  we  see  that  this 
explanation  of  its  origin  does  not  at  all  harmonize  with 
the  facts.  In  the  head  of  the  blind-fish,  beneath  where 
its  eyes  should  be,  two  small  dark  objects  appear  under 
the  skin  :  these  are  eyes ;  and  attached  to  them  is  the 
optic  nerve,  leading  to  the  optic  lobe  of  the  brain,  as  in 
fishes  having  full  possession  of  sight.  How  shall  we 
account  for  this?  Consider  the  blind-fish  a  miraculous 
creation,  and  its  peculiar  construction  can  never  be  ex- 
plained. It  was  evidently  modified  into  its  present  pecul- 
iar form.  The  Mammoth  Cave  was  hollowed  by  a  stream 
that  once  ran  upon  the  surface,  and  was  occupied  by  fish, 
as  our  streams  are  to-day.  This  stream  found  a  crevice 
in  the  lime-rock,  and  down  it  went,  introducing  its  fish  to 
a  life  of  darkness.  Conditions  were  so  unfavorable  that 
most  of  them  perished,  but  this  survived.  For  want  of 
the  stimulus  of  light,  the  eye  became  smaller.  Tie  up 
your  right  arm,  and  never  use  it,  and  it  will  shrivel  to 
half  the  size  of  the  left  in  a  twelvemonth.  It  transmitted 
this  diminished  eye  to  its  descendants  born  in  this  cave ; 


36  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

their  eyes  became  smaller  still,  for  want  of  stimulus,  and 
retreated  into  the  head ;  and,  in  process  of  time,  the  skin 
covered  the  eye,  and  the  blind-fish  of  the  Mammoth 
Cave  was  produced. 

Many  insects  and  crustaceans  are  found  in  this  cave, 
in  some  of  which  the  eyes  are  absent,  and  in  others  they 
are  reduced  to  mere  specks.     Fig.  7  represents  a  carabid 


Fig.  7.     Anophthalmus  Telkampfii.     (After  Packard.) 

beetle,  first  found  in  the  Mammoth  Cave  by  Tell  Kampf, 
from  whom  it  receives  its  specific  name.  It  is  destitute 
of  wings  and  totally  bhnd,  and  has  doubtless  become 
wingless  and  blind  in  consequence  of  the  disuse  of  wings 
and  eyes  resulting  from  its  cave  life.  The  Hadenoeais 
subterraneus  (Fig.  8)  is  a  wingless  grasshopper,  found 
also  in  the  Mammoth  Cave.  I  caught  it,  or  one  closely 
allied  to  it,  in  Wyandotte  Cave,  Indiana.  Its  antennae 
and  legs  are  proportionally  longer  than  those  of  its  rela- 
tions found  on  the  surface,  probably  because  they  had  to 
do  duty  for  eyes.     In  the  Wyandotte  Cave  of  Indiana 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


37 


is  also  a  blind  fish,  almost,  if  not  absolutely,  identical 
with  that  of  the  Mammoth  Cave.  The  caves  are  too 
far  apart  for  the  fishes  to  have  descended  from  the  same 
modified  progenitors;  but  the  conditions  surrounding 
them,  after  they  were  swept  into  the  respective  caves, 
being  almost  identical,  they  have  been  modified  into 
similar  beings. 

I  have  seen  a  tadpole  four  years  old,  kept  in  a  drug- 


FiG.  8.     Hadenoecus  Subterraneus.     (After  Packard.) 


gist's  store,  out  of  the  sunlight :  conditions  were  un- 
favorable for  its  perfect  development;  and,  although  a 
giant,  it  was  only  a  gigantic  tadpole. 

The  notornis  and  the  apteryx  are  small,  wingless  birds, 
found  in  New  Zealand ;  and  the  dinornis,  palapteryx  and 
aptornis  were  wingless  birds  that  once  lived  there,  but  are 
now  only  known  by  their  fossil  remains.  These  birds, 
living  in  a  country  where  beasts  that  might  prey  upon 
them  were  unknown,  and  where  flight  was  unnecessary 


38  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

for  food,  their  wings  were  so  little  employed  that  they 
became  too  small  for  flight,  and  by  disuse  have  so  dimin- 
ished, that  in  some  living  species  the  wing  is  only  repre- 
sented by  a  horny  claw. 

External  surroundings  cannot,  however,  create  hands, 
feet,  eyes,  ears,  and  brains.  The  cavern  darkness  has 
taken  away  the  exterior  eyes  of  the  a7)iblyopsis ;  but  light 
has  failed  to  give  eyes  to  the  protozoa,  though  they  have 
been  on  the  planet  since  the  Laurentian  times.  Webbed 
feet  are  very  useful  to  water-birds,  but  the  water  never 
made  them.  The  water-ousel  lives  almost  entirely  in  the 
water,  like  a  duck ;  it  feeds  on  shell-fish  and  water 
insects ;  its  food  and  habits  are  almost  the  same  as  the 
grebe  ;  its  ancestors  lived  a  similar  life  for  as  many  years 
as  naturalists  have  been  acquainted  with  them,  and  prob- 
ably for  a  million  years  before  that :  yet  its  feet  are  no 
more  webbed  than  those  of  a  sparrow.  There  must  be 
tendency  before  formation.  An  idiot  can  fire  a  palace  of 
beauty,  and  leave  only  a  pile  of  ashes ;  but  to  build  one 
requires  an  architect. 

From  the  dawn  of  life  upon  our  planet,  animals  and 
plants  have  been  surrounded  by  constantly  improving 
conditions  :  the  intense  heat  has  diminished,  poisonous 
gases  have  been  eliminated  from  the  atmosphere,  the 
land  surface  of  the  globe  has  increased,  and,  accom- 
panying this  advance,  organic  forms  have  improved,  as 
geology  demonstrates,  with    every  new  group    of  rocks 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


39 


deposited.  Had  sunlight  departed  from  the  world  in  the 
Silurian  age,  birds,  beasts,  and  men  had  never  appeared 
upon  our  planet.  Had  the  climate  and  atmosphere  of 
the  carboniferous  period  remained,  it  is  not  probable  that 
man  could  ever  have  been  developed  here.  The  power 
to  produce  a  frog  exists  in  the  tadpole,  but  light  is  essen- 
tial for  its  operation ;  and  thus  there  lay  in  the  fcetal 
globe  the  power  to  produce  a  man,  but  the  improve- 
ments of  millions  of  years  were  essential  to  mould  him 
to  his  present  form,  and  it  will  require  millions  more  to 
perfect  him. 

SYMMETRY. 

Another  law  that  has  operated  in  the  production  of 
organic   beings  is  the  law  of  Symmetry.     Lop  off  the 


Fig.  9.  Fig.  95. 

Clay-Stones  from  the  banks  of  the  Connecticut  River.     (Original.) 

branches  of  a  young  tree,  till  there  is  nothing  left  but  a 
bare  stick,  and  soon  a  branch  will   grow  to    the   right. 


40 


IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


another  to  the  left,  a  new  stem  will  shoot  upward,  and 
branches  will  symmetrically  develop  from  this,  and  the 
tree  is  a  thing  of  beauty  once  more.  The  very  clay 
stones  (Figs.  9,  9^^,  10,  10^),  that  grow  in  some  clay  beds, 
beneath  the  water-level  of  their  locality,  manifest  as 
perfect  symmetry  as  the  crystals  in  the  rocks  below  them, 
the  flowers  that  bloom  above  them,  and  the  human  beings 
that   see    and  admire  them.     The  right  hemisphere    of 


Fig.  10.  Fig.  105. 

Clay-Stones,  foot  of  Mount  Tom,  Mass.     (Original.) 

man's  brain  corresponds  with  his  left ;  and  he  thus  has 
two  brains,  as  he  has  two  nostrils,  two  eyes,  and  two  ears. 
Almost  every  part  of  his  body  is  duplicate. 

Even  diseases  are  symmetrical.  Mr.  James  Paget, 
quoted  by  Mivart  in  his  "  Genesis  of  Species,"  referring 
to  symmetrical  diseases,  writes,  "A  certain  morbid 
change  of  structure  on  one  side  of  the  body  is  repeated 
in   the    exactly  corresponding   part   of  the  other  side." 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  41 

He  figures  a  diseased  lion's  pelvis  from  the  Museum  of 
the  College  of  Surgeons,  and  says  of  it,  "  Multiform  as 
the  pattern  is,  in  which  the  new  bone,  the  product  of 
some  disease,  comparable  with  a  human  rheumatism,  is 
deposited,  —  a  pattern  more  complex  and  irregular  than 
the  spots  upon  a  map,  —  there  is  not  one  spot  or  line  on 
one  side  which  is  not  represented,  as  exactly  as  it  would 
be  in  a  mirror,  on  the  other.  The  likeness  has  more 
than  daguerreotype  exactness." 

Symmetry,  then,  is  one  of  the  tools  used  by  the  omni- 
present spirit  in  moulding  the  frame  of  man ;  and  we  are 
symmetrical  because  the  law  of  symmetry  has  presided 
over  the  upbuilding  of  our  structure. 

NATURAL   SELECTION. 

Then,  we  have  the  law  of  Natural  Selection,  so  ably 
elucidated  by  Charles  Darwin.  I  do  not  believe  that  it 
has  been  as  effectual  in  its  operation  as  Darwin  and  the 
Darwinians  suppose ;  but,  that  it  has  assisted  in  produ- 
cing our  present  forms  of  animal  and  vegetable  life,  there 
can  be  no  doubt.  It  is  the  gardener  that  trims  the  tree 
of  life,  lops  off  the  imperfect  branches,  and  destroys  the 
sprouts  that  might  divert  its  energies ;  but  it  is  not  the 
creator  that  gave  life  and  form  to  the  tree,  and  sent 
through  its  veins  the  invigorating  sap. 

Life  pushes  into  the  field  continually  more  beings  than 
can  possibly  survive.     A  cod  will  produce  at  a  birth  from 


42  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

four  to  nine  millions ;  a  full-grown  elm  will  perfect  in  one 
season  a  hundred  million  seeds ;  a  pair  of  rabbits  in  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  if  they  were  unrestrained,  would 
stock  the  entire  land-surface  of  the  globe.  The  result  of 
this  superabundance  of  life  is  a  grand  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, in  which  the  weak,  the  ill-formed,  the  bad-condi- 
tioned, are  killed  off,  and  those  animals  and  plants  most 
in  harmony  with  their  surroundings  survive,  and  perpet- 
uate their  harmonious  organization  to  their  posterity.  In 
a  fish,  that  which  assists  it  in  the  struggle  may  be  dense- 
ness  of  scale,  length  of  fin,  or  length  of  tooth,  enabhng  it 
to  distance  its  pursuers  or  hold  its  slippery  prey ;  in  the 
bird  it  may  be  length  of  wing,  strength  of  claw  or  bill,  or 
some  modification  of  color,  by  which  it  baffles  the  keen 
eyes  of  its  enemies  :  whatever  gives  an  animal  or  plant 
the  advantage,  puts  a  weapon  into  its  hands,  with  which 
it  kills  those  who  do  not  possess  it,  and  it  then  appropri- 
ates the  place  for  itself,  and  entails  it  for  those  of  its 
posterity  who  possess  the  same  advantages.  Thus  the 
most  perfect  types  of  organized  being  are  preserved  by 
a  general  providence,  that  watches  with  sleepless  eye,  and 
works  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole. 

In  Scotland  we  find  a  red  grouse  feeding  among  the 
red  heather  of  the  mountains  and  moors.  "Here  is  a 
special  providence,"  says  a  believer  in  the  miraculous  : 
"the  hawks  and  the  eagles,  that  hunt  by  sight,  cannot 
see  the  red  grouse  among  the   equally  red  heather,  and 


Oi^,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  43 

thus  it  escapes."  But  suppose  that  originally  grouse 
were  white,  and  one,  by  the  operation  of  the  law  of  vari- 
ation, was  born  red  :  the  hawks  and  eagles  being  unable 
to  see  it,  it  escapes,  and  gives  birth,  by  the  law  of  inherit- 
ance, to  birds  of  its  own  color ;  they  also  escape ;  the 
white  ones  being  all  the  time  weeded  out,  in  consequence 
of  being  so  conspicuous,  the  grouse  are  at  length  all  red 
as  we  find  them.  Here  is  a  providence  that  cares  for 
hawks  and  eagles  as  well  as  grouse  :  it  watches  over  flea 
and  philosopher,  and  works  for  the  perfection  of  every 
living  creature.  By  the  operation  of  these  and  doubtless 
many  other  laws,  through  the  immense  ages  of  our 
planet's  past,  life  has  advanced,  as  a  tree  advances  to 
fruit,  and  we  are  here  as  the  grand  result. 

"  But  do  you  mean  to  say,"  inquires  an  objector, 
"  that  these  blind  laws,  to  which  you  have  referred,  could 
ever  make  the  seeing  eye,  the  hearing  ear,  the  thinking 
brain,  and  the  soulful  man?"  Most  emphatically  no! 
But  the  laws  are  by  no  means  blind  :  they  are  to  me  the 
modes  of  operation  of  the  all-seeing  and  all-knowing 
spirit,  without  whose  direction  a  man  could  no  more  be 
produced  from  the  "  insensate  clod,"  than  a  bowlder  roll- 
ing down  a  mountain  torrent  could  be  fashioned  into  a 
perfect  copy  of  the  Venus  de  Medici  by  the  accidental 
blows  of  the  rocks  with  which  it  came  in  contact. 
Grant  a  law  of  life  :  what  should  cause  this  life  to  be 
manifested  in  a  sexual   form  and  be  thus  perpetuated? 


44  IS  DARWIN-  RIGHT? 

Grant  a  law  of  variation  :  mere  variation  would  operate 
to  make  an  animal  smaller  as  well  as  larger,  less  perfect 
as  well  as  more  perfect,  to  form  an  eye  behind  as  well  as 
before,  on  the  tail  as  likely  as  the  head ;  it  would  start  a 
nose  on  the  hand  as  readily  as  the  face,  an  ear  on  the 
foot,  and  develop  a  tongue  between  the  fingers  as  readi- 
ly as  between  the  jaws.  How  long  would  it  be  before 
undirected  variation  could  produce  a  perfect  eye  in  an 
animal  otherwise  bhnd  ?  About  as  long  as  it  would  take 
for  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  thrown  promiscuously  down 
to  arrange  themselves  into  a  beautiful  poem. 

But  we  cannot  leave  these  laws  out  of  sight,  nor  deny 
their  operation.  I  hear  two  men  discussing  about  the 
way  in  which  babies  become  men.  "  I  tell  you,  they  do 
it,"  says  one.  "Who  do  it?"  says  the  other.  "Why, 
the  fairies."  —  "Do  what?" — "Why,  transform  the  ba- 
bies into  men."  —  "What  have  the  fairies  to  do  with  it, 
pray?"  —  "They  have  every  thing  to  do  with  it,  and 
without  their  influence  such  a  thing  as  a  man  could  never 
be." —  "But  how  do  you  suppose  the  fairies  accomplish 
this  work?"  — "  I  will  tell  you:  you  have  noticed  that 
babies  sleep  a  great  deal?  "  —  "  Certainly."  —  "  Well, 
that  is  when  it  is  done  :  they  pass  inside  the  child,  for 
you  know  they  can  go  anywhere  and  do  any  thing ;  they 
enlarge  the  brain,  expand  the  skull,  extend  the  limbs, 
and,  in  short,  do  all  that  is  needed  to  be  done  to  make 
the  infant  into  a  man."  —  "But  did  you  ever  see  this  pro- 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  45 

cess,  which  you  thus  describe  ?  "  —  "  Oh,  no  !  the  fairies, 
you  know,  are  invisible,  and  therefore  we  can  never  see 
them  at  work."  —  "But  how,  then,  do  you  know  that  the 
fairies  do  all  this?"  —  "Because  there  is  no  other  way  in 
which  we  can  account  for  such  a  wonderful  change  as  the 
transformation  of  a  baby  into  a  man."  —  "  I  regard  your 
story  as  a  monstrous  fable."  —  "  How,  then,  do  you  think 
that  babies  are  changed  into  men?"  —  "Well,  I  do  not 
profess  to  know  entirely  how  it  is  done,  but  there  are 
some  things  connected  with  the  matter  that  I  do  know : 
you  have  noticed  that  babies  frequently  require  nourish- 
ment?"—  "Yes."  —  "Well,  that  has  a  great  deal  to  do 
with  it.  If  they  did  not  take  food  into  the  system,  they 
would  die,  and  could  not  become  men.  You  must  have 
noticed  also  that  they  breathe  :  this  is  of  great  impor- 
tance ;  and  if  they  were  prevented,  for  even  a  few  min- 
utes, death  would  be  the  consequence.  They  sleep  also  : 
and  this  is  important ;  lack  of  sleep  would  end  in  lack  of 
life,  and  the  transformation  of  the  baby  into  the  man 
would  cease."  Then  I  hear  the  first  exclaim,  "  But  do 
you  mean  to  say  that  blind  eating,  drinking,  sleeping, 
and  breathing,  can  change  an  utterly  helpless  and  know- 
nothing  infant,  weighing  eight  or  ten  pounds,  into  the 
strong  and  hearty  man,  who  masters  the  world,  scales  the 
heavens,  and  makes  all  the  forces  of  nature  minister  to 
his  needs?"  To  which  the  'second  replies,  "Oh,  no  !  I 
do  not  say  that :  more  than  all  else,  infinitely  more,  is 


46  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

the  spirit  of  the  child  derived  from  the  father  and  the 
mother.  It  is  this  that  presides  over  its  organization, 
from  the  time  it  is  an  ail-but  invisible  dot  till  it  is  born, 
and  then  makes  eating,  drinking,  breathing,  and  sleeping 
subservient  to  the  building-up  of  the  wondrous  structure 
that  we  call  a  man. 

So  the  universal  spirit,  never  for  an  instant  absent  from 
the  world,  has  operated  by  means  of  these  laws  during 
millions  of  years,  and  through  myriads  of  forms,  till  at 
length  it  was  able  to  say,  '"  I  have  made  a  man,  but  mil- 
lions of  years  will  even  yet  be  necessary  to  finish  him." 


POINTERS     INDICATING    MAN'S    NATURAL 

ORIGIN. 

METAMORPHOSIS    OF   ANIMALS. 

In  addition  to  these  laws,  whose  existence  can  be 
demonstrated  and  their  operation  seen,  there  are  what  I 
call  pointers,  which,  although  they  do  not  demonstrate 
that  man  came  into  existence  naturally,  and  without  the 
operation  of  miracle,  yet  they  point  very  significantly  in 
that  direction.  The  first  pointer  is  the  metamorphosis  of 
animals,  or  the  change  of  form  that  they  undergo  from 
the  time  they  are  conceived  until  they  are  fully  formed. 
All  animals  are  alike  to  the  eye  when  in  their  primitive 
egg  state ;  and,  in  passing  to  their  mature  form,  all  the 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


47 


higher  animals  go  through  a  series  of  significant  changes. 
J.  W.  Draper,  the  well-known  physiologist,  says,  "  All  ani- 
mals proceed  from  eggs  as  simple  in  structure  as  the 
simplest  infusoria  produced  spontaneously,  and  no  art  can 
distinguish  one  of  the  highest  class  from  one  of  the 
lowest."  Professor  Clark,  of  Harvard  College,  Cambridge, 
says,  "  All  animals,  from  the  monad,  the  gum-drop  amoe- 
ba, up  to  man,  at  one  time  cannot  possibly  be  distin- 
guished from  one  another.  .  .  .  You  could  not  tell  the 


Fig.  II.  Fig.  12.  Fig.  13. 

Fig.  h.  —  Primitive  Egg  of  a  Trout.  Fig.  12.  —  Primitive  Egg  of  a  Hen. 

Fig.  13.  —  Primitive  Human  Egg.     (After  Haeckel.) 


one  from  the  other  any  more  readily  than  you  could  dis- 
tinguish a  drop  of  water  from  Cochituate  Lake  from  that 
of  Mystic  River."  (Fig.  11,  Fig.  12,  and  Fig.  13.)  So, 
it  is  highly  probable  that  man's  original  ancestors,  in  the 
earliest  ocean  containing  organized  life,  were  equally 
undistinguishable  from  the  progenitors  of  other  types  of 
life  that  swarmed  in  the  ocean  with  them. 

The  mosquito  is  first  an  ^gg,  then  a  worm  ;  at  last  an 
insect  on  filmy  wings,  "  blowing  its  shrill  trumpet,"  as  it 


48  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

prepares  to  attack  us  for  our  blood.  The  silkworm  is 
an  ^gg,  then  a  worm,  eating  and  growing  from  thirty 
to  forty  days,  when  it  weaves  its  enclosing  case,  and 
passes  into  the  chrysalis  state.  While  in  this  condition 
strange  transformations  take  place  :  its  jaws  are  changed 
into  a  coiled  tongue,  its  stomach  is  shortened,  compound 
eyes  take  the  place  of  simple  eyes,  antennae  make  their 
appearance  upon  the  forehead,  wings  spring  from  the 
sides,  and  out  issues  the  queenly  moth. 

The  frog  commences  its  existence,  like  all  other  ani- 
mals, with  the  ^gg,  as  we  see  them  in  spring  in  the  pools 
by  the  wayside,  surrounded  by  jelly.  In  about  a  month 
it  leaves  the  ^gg,  but  it  is  in  a  very  imperfect  condition. 
The  head  is  quite  large ;  but  there  are  no  traces  of  ears, 
nostrils,  lungs,  or  even  gills.  About  the  fourth  day  after 
its  birth,  ears  and  nostrils  make  their  appearance,  and 
little  branching  gills.  The  mouth  is  soon  furnished  with 
a  horny  beak,  and  the  tail  is  lengthened  and  widened  : 
the  animal  is  now  a  tadpole,  and  we  should  call  it  a  fish 
if  we  did  not  know  what  it  was  destined  to  become.  It 
breathes  by  means  of  gills,  as  the  fish  does,  propels  itself 
through  the  water  with  its  long,  broad,  flat  tail,  as  the  fish 
also  does,  and  'feeds  upon  the  plants  that  grow  in  its 
watery  abode  :  there  is  no  trace  of  either  internal  or 
external  limbs.  In  the  hinder  part  of  the  body  two  bud- 
like swellings  appear,  and  two  like  them  in  the  front, 
which    develop    into    limbs,  when    the    tail   is   gradually 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  49 

absorbed,  and  at  length  disappears  from  sight.  While 
these  changes  are  taking  place,  others,  less  observable 
but  more  important,  are  going  on.  The  mouth  increases 
in  size  and  gape ;  the  horny  lips  are  replaced  by  teeth ; 
the  intestines  are  shortened  ;  the  gills  dwindle  in  size  ;  the 
lungs,  that  before  were  solid  and  small,  enlarge  and  be- 
come cavernous  ;  the  fish-heart  is  modified,  a  third  cham- 
ber being  developed  by  the  expansion  of  one  of  the 
large  arteries ;  the  vessels  that  convey  blood  to  the  gills 
are  gradually  suppressed,  the  work  of  the  gills  is  at 
length  forever  done ;  the  water  is  no  longer  a  suitable 
place  of  abode ;  the  frog  gasps,  takes  its  first  full  breath, 
leaps  upon  the  land,  and  croaks  its  joy  at  finding  itself  in 
such  a  superior  condition.  (Fig.  14.)  But  the  other 
day  it  was  a  fish  feeding  upon  water-plants,  with  a 
horny  beak ;  and  now  it  is  a  frog,  with  rows  of  teeth, 
a  changed  stomach,  and  a  changed  appetite,  and  woe 
to  the  fly  that  comes  within  the  range  of  its  glutinous 
tongue  ! 

Why  is  the  insect  first  a  worm,  and  the  frog  first  a 
fish  ?  Geologically  we  have  reason  to  beheve  that  worms 
preceded  insects,  and  fishes  preceded  frogs,  by  milHons 
of  years ;  and  it  appears  that  every  animal  shows  us  in 
its  development  the  road  over  which  its  ancestors  trav- 
elled during  the  early  ages  of  the  world. 

What  is  true  of  all  animals  below  man  is  equally  true 
of  him.     The    existence    of  man    on   this   planet  com- 


50 


IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


mences  with  an  ovum,  or  tgg,  formed  in  the  body  of  the 
female,  which  is  about  yjy  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  or 
barely  visible  to  the  naked  eye.     It  contains  a  yolk,  con- 


FiG.  14.  —  Metamorphosis  of  the  Frog.  i.  The  embryo  frog  in  the  egg;  2.  At  a 
more  advanced  stage;  3.  Tadpole  four  days  after  being  hatched;  4.  At  a  more 
advanced  stage;  5.  A  stage  farther,  when  its  gills  have  dwindled;  6.  The  per- 
fect tadpole;  7.  The  gills  are  now  gone,  and  hind  limbs  are  seen;  8.  Frog  nearly 
perfect. 


sisting  of  a  multitude  of  granules ;  and  in  this  is  a  trans- 
parent vesicle  which  is  called  the  germ  vesicle,  and  this 
contains  a  small  round  dark  spot  called  the  germ-spot. 
(Fig.  15.) 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


51 


^^'hen  impregnated  by  the  sperm-cells  of  the  male,  the 


Fig.  15.  —  The  Human  Egg  greatly  enlarged.     (After  Haeckel.) 

germ  vesicle  and  germ-spot  disappear,  and  the  ^gg  then 


Fig.  16.  —  The  impregnated  INIammalian  Egg.    (After  Haeckel.) 

presents  the  appearance  of  a  drop  of  gum  or  speck  of 
jelly  (Fig.  16),  resembling  the  simplest  forms  of  life 
known  to  us,  the  amoeba. 


52 


IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


Soon  after  its  formation  a  round  kernel  is  formed  in  its 
interior,  which  occupies  the  centre  of  the  cell ;  and  in 
the  centre  of  that  is  a  small  dot  called  the  nucleolus. 
This  cell,  the  product  of  both  parents,  in  which  the  first 


Fig.  17.  —  The  Mammalian  Egg  shortly  after  impregnation,  when  it  Is  called  the 

Parent  Cell.     (After  Haeckel.) 

germ  of  the  future  individual  appears,  is  called  the  parent 
cell.     (Fig.  17.) 

The  next  step  in  the  evolution  of  the  man  is  the 
division  of  the  kernel  into  two,  just  as  the  amoeba  divides 
to  form  a  new  animal.  (Fig.  18.)  These  repel  each  other, 
separate,  and  attract  the  matter  contained  in  the  parent 
cell,  and  thus  form  two  cells,  which  contain,  as  the  first 
did,  a  nucleus  and  central  dot  or  nucleolus.  The  cells 
soon  change  from  a  globular  to  an  oval  form,  (Fig.  19.) 
One  of  the  Mvo  is  larger  and  more  transparent  than  the 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


53 


Other ;  and,  as  the  cells  continue  to  divide,  the  larger  and 
lighter  increase  at  a  quicker  rate  than  the  cells  produced 


Fig.  i8.  —  An  Amoeba  in  the  act  of  reproduction.  A.  The  whole  Amoeba:  B.  The 
Amoeba  dividing;  C a  and  Cb.  The  two  halves,  now  independent  individuals. 
(After  Haeckel.) 

from  the  smaller  and  darker,  till  they  form  what  is  called 


Fig.  19.  —  Gjmmencem.ent  of  Cleavage  in  the  Mammalian  Egg.     (Haeckel.) 

a  morula  or  mulberry  mass,  consisting  of  a  multitude  of 
small  cells,  of  which  the  organs  of  the  future  animal  are 


54 


/S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


to  be  built.  The  larger,  lighter,  and  more  active  cells 
form  eventually  a  layer,  called  the  animal  layer,  from 
which  the  skin,  the  spine,  the  spinal  marrow,  the  brain, 
and  the  entire  bony  skeleton,  are  produced ;  the  smaller, 
darker,  and  more  sluggish  cells  also  form  a  layer,  called 
the  vegetative  layer,  from  which  the  organs  of  digestion 
and  reproduction  are  made. 


Fig.  20.  —  The  Primitive  Trace. 


These  layers  form  a  circular  germ-area,  the  centre  of 
which  is  occupied  by  a  transparent  area,  which  is  like- 
wise circular.  In  the  centre  of  the  transparent  space,  in 
the  germ-area,  a  line  makes  its  appearance,  where  the 
future  spinal  column  will  be  :  this  is  called  the  primitive 
trace,  which  is  the  foundation  of  the  man.     (Fig.  20.) 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  55 

At  the  end  of  the  second  week  the  human  being  is  one- 
twelfth  of  an  inch  in  length :  as  yet  there  is  no  distinc- 
tion between  fish,  reptile,  bird,  mammal,  or  man,  all 
being  formed  in  the  same  way,  and  having  the  same 
appearance. 

The  trace  enlarges,  its  edges  thicken,  rise,  and  bend 
forward  in  front,  till  they  join,  and  form  a  tube,  which  is 
destined  to  contain  the  brain  and  spinal  cord :  this  is 
sometimes  called  the  spinal  tube.  At  the  same  time  the 
edges  of  the  under  side  of  the  primitive  trace  bend  back- 
ward, curve,  unite,  and  form  a  second  tube,  which  be- 
comes the  abdominal  cavity,  enclosing  the  alimentary 
canal  and  the  reproductive  organs :  this  is  sometimes 
called  the  intestinal  tube.  When  the  human  being  is 
three  weeks  old,  it  is  about  one-sixth  of  an  inch  in  length  : 
a  swelling  exists  where  the  head  is  to  be,  and  the  first 
rudiments  of  the  eye,  the  ear,  and  the  brain,  make  their 
appearance.  The  limbs  are  entirely  wanting,  there  is  no 
real  face,  and  nothing  to  distinguish  man  from  opossum, 
dog,  or  ape. 

At  the  end  of  the  fourth  week  the  human  embryo  is 
nearly  half  an  inch  long ;  the  head  with  its  various  parts 
can  be  plainly  distinguished ;  the  heart  shows  all  four 
compartments,  and  nearly  fills  the  chest  cavity ;  the  rudi- 
ments of  the  lungs  appear,  and  all  the  essential  parts  of 
the  body  may  be  seen.  Yet  even  now,  as  Haeckel  says 
(to  whose  work  "  The  Evolution  of  Man,"  I  am  indebted 


56 


IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


for  most  of  this  description),  in  this  stage  we  are  still  un- 
able to  discern  any  characters  essentially  distinguishing 
the  human  embryo  from  those  of  the  dog,  the  rabbit,  the 
ox,  the  horse,  or,  indeed,  of  any  of  the  higher  mammals." 
(Figs.  21,   22,  23,  24.)     It  is  true,  the  head  is  a  little 


Fig.  21.  Fig.  22.  Fig.  23.  Fic.  24. 

Fig.  21.  —  The  Embryo  of  the  Fish  at  an  early  period  of  its  development.  Fig. 
22.  —  The  Embryo  of  the  Chick.  FiG.  23.  —  The  Embryo  of  the  Hog.  Fig.  24. 
—  The  Embryo  of  the  Man. 


larger  in  man  than  in  the  hog,  and  th^"  tail  is  a  little 
shorter ;  but  the  tail  of  man  when  he  is  a  month  old  is 
double  the  length  of  his  legs. 

At  eight  weeks  old  the  human  embryo  can  scarcely  be 
distinguished  from  that  of  the  highest  apes,  but  after  this 
its  human  character  is  firmly  established. 

Dr.  Roget  tells  us  that  "the  human  embryo  is  not 
exempt  from  the  same  metamorphoses"  (that  is,  those  to 
which  the  lower  animals  are  subject),  "possessing  at 
one  period  branchiae  and  branchial  apertures  similar  to 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  57 

those  of  the  cartilaginous  fishes,  a  heart  with  a  single 
set  of  cavities,  and  a  brain  consisting  of  a  longitudinal 
series  of  tubercles ;  next  losing  its  branchiae,  and  acquir- 
ing lungs,  while  the  circulation  is  yet  single,  and  thus 
imitating  the  condition  of  the  reptile ;  then  acquiring  a 
double  circulation,  but  an  incomplete  diaphragm,  like 
birds ;  afterwards  appearing  like  a  quadruped,  with  a 
caudal  prolongation  of  the  sacrum,  and  an  intermaxillary 
bone  ;  and,  lastly,  changing  its  structure  to  one  adapted 
to  the  erect  position."  ^ 

Agassiz  says  of  the  human  brain,  "  It  first  becomes  a 
brain  resembling  that  of  a  fish,  then  it  grows  into  the 
form  of  that  of  a  reptile,  then  into  that  of  a  bird,  then 
into  that  of  a  mammiferous  quadruped,  and  finally  it 
assumes  the  form  of  a  human  brain ;  'thus  comprising  in 
its  foetal  progress  an  epitome  of  geological  history,  as  if 
man  were  in  himself  a  compendium  of  all  animated 
nature,  and  of  kin  to  every  creature  that  lives.'  "  -  And 
Agassiz'  conjecture  is  probably  the  exact  truth,  and  the 
correct  explanation  of  these  wonderful  resemblances. 
Huxley  says,  "  It  is  very  long  before  the  body  of  the 
young  human  being  can  be  distinguished  from  that  of 
the  young  puppy."  It  may  be  considered  an  unfortunate 
circumstance,  that  the  mental  similarity  continues  much 

*  Roget,  Bridgewater  Treatise,  vol.  ii.,  p.  443. 
2  Preface  to  Footprints  of  the  Creator. 


58  ^         IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

But  why  do  human  beings  resemble  protozoans,  the 
simplest  forms  of  life  ;  then  worms,  brainless  fishes,  true 
fishes,  so  that  they  even  have  gills  and  gill  apertures  ; 
why  do  they  advance  through  forms  that  closely  resem- 
ble those  of  the  reptile,  the  bird,  the  lower  mammal,  and 
the  ape,  before  they  assume  the  proper  human  type? 
Are  not  these  so  many  steps  by  which  man  has  ascended 
to  his  elevated  position?  Is  it  not  safe  to  say  that  if 
there  had  never  been  a  protozoan,  produced  sponta- 
neously, there  never  could  have  been  a  worm  ;  without  a 
worm  never  a  fish ;  without  a  fish  never  a  reptile,  bird,  or 
man? 

All  the  facts  connected  with  man's  metamorphoses 
from  the  tgg  to  the  perfect  being,  and  they  are  millions, 
unite  in  pointing  to  man's  natural  and  therefore  to  man's 
brutal  origin.  In  this  sense  the  brute  is  father  of  the 
man. 

ANATOMICAL   SIMILARITY. 

Another  pointer  is  the  anatomical  similarity  between 
man  and  the  lower  animals.  The  number  of  limbs  in 
the  vertebrates  of  all  ages  has  been  four.  The  first  true 
fishes  balanced  themselves  with  four  fins,  as  our  present 
ones  do  ;  their  forward  fins  corresponding  with  our  arms, 
the  hinder  ones  with  our  legs.  The  reptile  walks  with 
four  feet ;  the  bird  with  two,  because  the  other  twp  have 
become  wings,  and  are  needed  for  flight :  they  are   but 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


59 


feathered  arms.  The  monkeys  are  said  to  have  four 
hands ;  but  in  reahty  they  have  two  feet,  that  are  fre- 
quently used  as  hands,  which  they  somewhat  resemble, 
and  two  hands  that  are  frequently  used  as  feet. 

We  share  our  digits  with  vast  numbers  of  both  living 
and  extinct  forms.     Our  earliest  star-fishes  have  five  fin- 


FiG.  25.  Fig.  26. 

Fig.   25.  —  Palceaster  Ruthveni.      Fig.  26. — Palasterina  Primceva.      Both 
from  the  Upper  Silurian  of  Great  Britain.     (After  Salter). 

gers  (Figs.  25  and  26),  as  have  most  of  our  living  ones. 
The  fingers  of  the  crinoids  are  always  some  multiple  of 
five,  while  their  cups,  when  angular,  are  always  five-sided, 
and  their  stalks  nearly  always  so.  The  old  labyrinthodon 
left  a  five-digited  track  on  the  Triassic  sandstones,  that 
looks  marvellously  like  the  impression  of  a  rude  human 
hand.  (Fig.  27.)  In  the  foot  of  the  musk-rat,  in  the 
paw  of  the  bear  and  lion,  in  the  flipper  of  the  dolphin, 
the  wing  of  the  bat,  and  the  undivided  paddle  of  the 
whale,  are  the  same  number  of  bones,  and  in  the  same 
places,  as  in  the  hand  of  the  man  who  writes  an  article 
to  disprove  man's  natural  origin. 


6o  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

Man  has  seven  cervical  vertebrae  in  his  neck ;  so  has 
the  giraffe  that  feeds  upon  the  mimosa-trees,  twenty  feet 
high,  and  the  pig  that  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  a  neck 
at  all. 

All  the  higher  apes  have  the  same  number  of  vertebrae 


Fig.  27.  —  Track  of  the  Labyrinthodon. 

as  man ;  their  teeth  are  the  same ;  and  so  close  is  the 
general  resemblance  between  them  and  man,  that  Owen, 
our  highest  authority  in  comparative  anatomy,  says,  "  I 
cannot  shut  my  eyes  to  the  significance  of  that  all-per- 
vading similitude  of  structure  —  every  tooth,  every  bone, 
strictly  homologous  —  which  makes  the  determination  of 
the  difference  between  ho7no  and  pitJiecus "  (that  is, 
between  man  and  the  monkey)  "  the  anatomist's  diffi- 
culty." ^  As  late  as  the  sixteenth  century,  human  anato- 
my was  taught  and  studied  from  the  skeleton  of  the 
monkey  alone.  The  anatomical  differences  that  exist 
between  the  various  famihes  of  monkeys  are  greater  than 
those  that  exist  between  the  anthropomorplious  apes  — 
such  as  the  chimpanzee,  the  orang,  and  the  gorilla  —  and 
man. 

1  Journal  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Linnaean  Society  of  London  for  1857. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  6 1 

Why  this  close  anatomical  resemblance?  A  miracu- 
lous creator  could  hardly  be  supposed  to  follow  the  same 
model  in  creating  man  that  was  used  for  these  brutes,  so 
immeasurably  his  inferiors ;  and  in  this  similarity  of 
form,  which  exists  between  man  and  the  animals  below 
him,  we  have  a  pointer  whose  significance  may  be 
denied,  but  can  hardly  be  doubted. 

LINKING    FORMS. 

The  linking  forms,  which  exist  between  man  and  the 
lowest  types  of  life,  constitute  another  pointer.  Man 
does  not  float  like  a  balloon,  completely  cut  off  from  all 
below  him,  but  is  uniteei  with  the  lowest  organisms  by  a 
series  of  animal  forms,  that  are  like  so  many  layers  of 
stone  in  a  pyramid,  of  which  he  forms  the  apex.  It  is 
now  generally  acknowledged  that  animals  and  plants  are 
so  closely  linked  in  their  lowest  forms,  that  they  pass  into 
each  other  by  insensible  gradations.  The  protozoa,  as 
Page  says  in  his  geological  hand-book,  "  appear  almost 
to  occupy  a  sort  of  neutral  ground  between  animals  and 
vegetables."  Hence  they  are  called  by  some  naturalists 
Phytozoa,  or  plant-animals.  Professor  Clark,  one  of  the 
best  of  microscopists,  says,  "  To  this  day  there  remains 
a  doubt  as  to  the  animal  or  vegetable  nature  of  certain 
forms,  which  have  characters  that  lead  on  the  one  side  to 
plants,  and    on   the  other  to  animals."^     Sponges   have 

^  Mind  in  Nature,  p.  151. 


62  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

been  placed  on  both  sides  of  the  Hne  by  many  natural- 
ists ;  and,  though  now  regarded  as  animals,  they  are 
rooted,  manifest  no  feeling,  and  appear  lower  in  the  scale 
than  some  plants  with  which  we  are  acquainted. 

It  is  but  a  step  from  the  protozoa  to  the  opalina,  a 
creature  covered  with  vibratory  cilia,  that  is  frequently 
classed  with  the  protozoa,  but  is  allied  very  closely  to  cer- 
tain  worms.  Various  classes  of  worms  carry  us  near  to 
the  line  of  the  lowest  of  the  vertebrates,  like  the  amphi- 
oxus,  a  fish,  and  yet  destitute  of  skull,  brain,  jaws,  limbs, 
and  jointed  vertebral  column.  Step  by  step  we  pass 
along  the  line  of  the  fishes,  till  we  come  to  forms  which 
are  exceedingly  difiicult  to  class  either  with  fishes  or  with 
amphibians.  The  proteus  of  the  Austrian  caves,  the  lepi- 
dosiren  or  mud-fish,  and  the  axolotl  of  Mexico,  are  fish- 
like animals  with  long  tails,  and  possess  both  lungs  and 
gills.  In  the  water  they  can  breathe  by  means  of  their 
gills,  and  in  the  air  by  means  of  their  lungs.  In  zoologi- 
cal works  to-day  these  forms  are  sometimes  classed  with 
amphibians  and  sometimes  with  fishes.  From  the  am- 
phibians to  the  true  reptiles  the  distance  is  not  great ; 
but  from  the  reptiles  that  crawl,  to  the  birds  that  fly,  the 
space  is  wide  :  geology,  however,  enables  us  to  bridge 
or  nearly  bridge  the  chasm  between  them.  The  ptero- 
dactyle  was  a  flying  lizard  with  bird-like  characteristics. 
(Fig.  28.)  The  Jurassic  and  cretaceous  beds  furnish  us 
with  skeletons  of  dinosaurs  that  walked  upon  their  hind- 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


^2. 


legs  alone,  and  were  apparently  on  the  march  to  the 
bird ;  while  Solenhofen  presents  us  with  a  bird  having 
reptilian  teeth  and  a  reptihan  but  feathered  tail,  and  the 
cretaceous  beds  of  Kansas  have  yielded  birds  with  rep- 
tilian jaws  and  bristling  teeth.      (Fig.  29.) 


Fig.  28.  —  Restored  Skeleton  of  the  Pterodactyle.     The   species   represented  is 

Pterodactylus  Crassirostris. 


There  is  considerable  space  to-day  between  the  bird 
and  the  mammal,  and  doubtless  we  shall  yet  discover 
between  them  many  intermediate  fossil  forms.  Yet  in 
the  ornithorhynchus  we  see  a  mammal  with  webbed  feet ; 
broad  flat  jaws,  destitute  of  teeth,  that  resemble  those  of 
a  duck ;  an  animal  that  has  but  one  excretory  orifice,  hke 
a  bird,  and  produces  eggs,  but  they  are  hatched  before 
thev  leave  the  oviduct. 


64 


IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


When  we  advance  from  the  lower  mammals  to  man, 
we  approach  a  chasm  that  has  been  regarded  as  infinitel}^ 
wide  and  that  requires  a  miracle  to  span ;  but,  as  Huxley 
says,  "  no  absolute  structural  line  of  demarcation,  wider 
than  that  between  the  animals  that  immediately  succeed 
us  in  the  scale,  can  be  drawn  between  the  animal  world 


Fig.  29.  —  Jaws  of  Fossil  Birds  from  the  Cretaceous  Beds  of  Kansas.  Lower 
Jaw  of  Ichihyorttis  Dispar.  Lower  Jaw  of  Hesperortiis  Regalis.  (After 
Marsh.) 


and  ourselves."  If  we  look  at  brain-capacity,  where  we 
find  the  greatest  disproportion  between  the  quadrumana 
and  man,  we  learn  that  the  difference  between  the  brain- 
capacity  of  the  average  Australian  and  the  largest  Cau- 
casian is  five  and  a  half  cubic  inches  greater  than  be- 
tween the  average  gorilla  and  the  smallest  Australian.  If 
the  small  brain-capacity  of  the  Australian  will  not  prevent 
him  from  rising  in  the  scale  of  manhood  till  individ- 
uals of  his  race  shall  equal  the  highest  Caucasian  brain 
endowment,  the  nthe  smallness  of  the  brain-capacity  of 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN-  OF  MAN.  65 

the  ape-like  forms  that  parented  humanity  may  not  have 
prevented  them  from  advancing  to  the  brain-capacity  of 
the  lowest  Australian.  The  fact,  however,  is,  as  has  been 
frequently  said,  man  is  widening  the  gap  between  him- 
self and  the  lower  animals  continually,  and  must  have 
been  doing  so  for  ages,  by  killing  off  the  animals  that 
are  most  like  himself,  their  wants  and  his  being  almost 
identical,  and  by  advancing  in  cerebral  power  and  gen- 
eral manhood.  What  the  brain-capacity  of  the  animals 
was,  from  which  human  beings  are  directly  descended,  it 
may  be  difficult  to  say,  as  they  have  long  since  perished ; 
but  human  skulls  of  the  greatest  age  show  us,  by  the 
general  smallness  of  their  size  and  their  inferior  develop- 
ment, that  the  gap  between  brutality  and  humanity  was, 
in  all  probability,  much  narrower  in  ancient  times  than  it 
is  at  present. 

I  do  not  suppose,  as  Darwinians  do,  that  all  the  steps 
taken  by  animals  in  their  progressive  march  were  neces- 
sarily minute.  They  may  have  been  as  great  as  would 
enable  animals  to  pass  from  one  variety  to  another,  and 
in  some  cases  the  steps  may  have  been  as  wide  as  those 
that  separate  specific  forms  of  the  same  genus.  There 
may  be  indeed  a  magnetic  force,  of  whose  operation  we 
have  obscure  indications,  that  in  the  past  time  of  our 
planet's  history  was  much  more  active  than  at  present, 
and  by  whose  agency  greater  organic  changes  took  place, 
and  with  greater  rapidity,  than  is  possible  at  the  present 
time. 


66  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


RUDIMENTARY    ORGANS. 


One  of  the  most  significant  pointers  is  the  existence 
of  what  are  called  rudimentary  organs,  or  what  might  be 
more  properly  called  redundant  organs.  In  addition  to 
those  organs  which  animals  possess,  that  are  in  general 
use,  there  are  other  organs  or  parts  of  organs,  that  are 
not  of  the  slightest  utility,  but  point  back  to  ancestral 
forms  of  life^  in  which  they  were  of  use.  All  ruminants, 
except  camels,  are  destitute  of  incisors  in  the  upper  jaw. 
Most  persons  are  familiar  with  the  fact  that  the  cow  has  a 
hard  pad,  occupying  the  place  which  in  us  is  occupied 
by  the  upper  incisor  teeth.  The  unborn  calf,  however, 
has  incisor  teeth  in  the  upper  jaw,  that  never  cut  through 
the  gum,  and  are  therefore  never  of  the  slightest  use  to 
the  animal.  As  the  blind-fish  of  the  caves  lost  its  eyes 
because  it  never  used  them,  so  these  animals,  we  may 
suppose,  are  descended  from  an  animal  that  possessed 
incisors  in  the  upper  jaw  and  used  them  ;  but  some  de- 
scendant of  this  animal,  by  a  variation  in  its  structure, 
was  able  to  crop  grass  by  a  lateral  motion  of  its  lower 
jaw,  the  assistance  of  its  tongue,  and  mere  pressure  upon 
the  upper  jaw,  and  in  process  of  time  the  upper  incis- 
ors were  lost.  The  unborn  animal  never  having  been 
modified,  in  the  foetal  calf  we  have  a  representative  of  the 
unmodified  upper-incisor-using  ancestor,  probably  of  the 
early  tertiary  times. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


67 


The  horse  and  its  probable  ancestors  furnish  us  with 
interesting  examples  of  rudimentary  or  redundant  organs. 
In  the  leg  of  the  horse  we  find  what  are  called  splint 
bones,  which  answer  to  the  index  and  ring  fingers  of  the 
human  hand :  there  are,  however,  no  exterior  toes  to 
correspond  with  these  interior  bones,  except  in  special 
cases,  in  which  horses  are  occasionally  seen  with  two 
small  hoofs  attached  to  these  bones.     Until  the  discovery 


Fig.  30.  —  Modifications  of  the  Foot  of  the  Horse,  i.  Foot  of  the  Recent  Horse; 
2.  Foot  of  the  Hipparion  ;  3.  Foot  of  the  Miohippus  ;  4.  Foot  of  the  Orohip- 
pus.     (After  Marsh.) 


of  horse-like  animals  in  the  tertiary  deposits,  no  one 
could  imagine  what  was  the  meaning  of  these  bones  and 
the  occasional  appearance  of  extra  hoofs. 

In  European  beds  belonging  to  the  pliocene,  the  high- 
est division  of  the  tertiary,  we  find  an  animal  called  the 
hipparion,  about  the  size  of  an  ass,  but  greatly  resembling 
the  horse  in  anatomical  structure.  It  had,  however,  a 
small  toe  on  each  side  of  the  hoof,  that  never  reached 


68  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

the  ground.  (Fig.  30.)  If  this  animal,  which  was  very 
abundant  before  the  horse  made  its  appearance,  was  the 
ancestor  of  the  horse,  we  may  account  for  the  sphnt 
bones  in  the  leg  of  the  horse,  and  the  occasional  appear- 
ance of  dangling  toes  on  its  leg.  They  are  heirlooms 
from  the  ancestral  hippario7i.  But  what  is  the  meaning 
of  the  toes  that  never  touch  the  ground  in  the  leg  of  the 
hipparion  ?  To  discover  the  meaning  of  these,  we  must 
go  still  farther  back. 

In  the  miocene  beds  of  the  United  States  we  find  a 
horse-like  animal  about  the  size  of  a  sheep,  called  the 
miohippiis,  furnished  with  three  serviceable  toes  on  each 
foot ;  but  the  middle  toe  is  the  longest  and  much  the 
largest,  and  must  have  been  most  used.  There  is  also  a 
rudimentary  splint-bone  on  each  fore-leg,  and  we  now 
naturally  look  still  farther  back  for  the  meaning  of  this. 

In  the  middle  eocene  we  find  the  orohippus,  another 
horse-like  animal,  but  not  much  larger  than  a  fox ;  in  it 
we  find  the  rudimentary  splint-bone  of  the  miohippus  re- 
placed by  a  perfect  and  serviceable  toe,  though  the  hind- 
legs  have  but  three  toes,  as  have  those  of  the  miohippus. 

In  the  lowest  beds  of  the  eocene  are  found  the  re- 
mains of  the  eohippus  (dawn-horse).  This  was  no  larger 
than  a  fox,  yet  had  considerable  resemblance  to  the 
horse,  and  had  on  its  fore-feet  four  serviceable  toes,  and 
a  rudimentary  fifth  toe.  We  look  still  farther  back,  there- 
fore, for  a  five-toed  true  eohippus :  it  has  not  yet  been 


OJ^,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  69 

discovered,  but  may  be  found  in  the  cretaceous  beds,  as 
a  diminutive  horse  about  as  large  as  a  rabbit.  All  mod- 
ern horses  may  not  have  descended  from  the  horse-like 
animals  whose  names  I  have  mentioned,  for  in  my  opin- 
ion horses  have  been  developed  along  several  lines ;  but 
I  have  no  doubt  that  all  of  them  passed  through  similar 
metamorphoses  in  the  course  of  their  development,  and 
the  traces  of  the  ancestors  can  be  seen  in  their  more 
developed  progeny. 

True  whales,  those  from  which  the  whalebone  is  ob- 
tained, have  no  teeth ;  but  the  foetal  whale  has  from  sixty 
to  seventy  teeth  on  each  side  of  the  jaw.  The  whale  is 
probably  descended  from  some  carnivorous  mammal,  that 
had  teeth  and  used  them ;  but  some  of  its  descendants 
became  so  varied  that  baleen  took  the  place  of  teeth, 
which  only  appear  to-day  in  the  unmodified  foetus. 

The  apteryx  of  New  Zealand  is  a  wingless  bird ;  yet 
the  wing-bones,  reduced  to  mere  rudiments,  are  there. 
Living  as  its  ancestors  did  in  a  country  where  there  were 
no  mammals  to  disturb  it,  flight  was  unnecessary,  and  by 
disuse  the  wings  became  smaller ;  and  the  modified  de- 
scendants of  the  flying  ancestors  have  but  horny  claws 
where  the  wings  once  were. 

Boas  and  pythons,  those  gigantic  snakes,  have  rudi- 
mentary hind-limbs,  consisting  of  a  few  small  bones  sus- 
pended in  the  muscles  on  each  side,  and  terminated  in  a 
horny  claw,  which  appears  on  the  outside.     These  rudi- 


70  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

mentary  limbs  are  good  evidence  that  their  remote  an- 
cestors could  walk.  Among  lizards  to-day  we  may  almost 
see  the  steps  by  which  ancient  lizards  were  modified  into 
snakes.  In  the  family  of  the  scincidcE,  we  find  the  genus 
scincus,  with  short  feet  and  a  body  nearly  cylindrical  and 
covered  with  scales.  In  seps  the  legs  are  very  weak  and 
set  far  apart ;  so  that  it  trusts  little  to  its  limbs,  and  wrig- 
gles along  like  a  snake.  It  is  not  surprising  to  find  ani- 
mals in  which  the  reduction  of  the  limbs  has  been  carried 
farther  still,  and  only  a  few  bones  in  some  cases  are  left 
to  show  where  the  limbs  have  been. 

Nor  is  man  destitute  of  similar  indications  of  his  pre- 
vious ancestors.  In  most  persons  the  ability  to  move  the 
ears  is  gone,  though  the  rudiments  of  the  muscles  by 
which  the  motions  were  once  effected  are  still  there. 
(Fig.  31.)  In  the  skeleton  of  man  we  can  still  see  the 
bones  of  the  tail,  that  must  have  characterized  his  pro- 
genitors, but  which  was  lost  long  before  the  appearance 
of  humanity. 

PALEONTOLOGICAL  RESEMBLANCE. 

The  resemblance  that  exists  between  living  animals 
found  in  certain  districts  of  country  and  the  fossil  ani- 
mals found  in  the  recent  tertiary  deposits  of  the  same 
districts  is  another  pointer. 

In  South  America  there  are  found  at  this  time  the 
sloth,  the  armadillo,  the  cavy,  or  guinea-pig  as  it  is  some- 


OR,   THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


71 


times  called,  the  ctenomys,  and  platyrrhine  or  broad-nos- 
trilled  monkeys ;  but  none  of  these  are  found  in  Europe, 
Asia,  or  Africa.  In  accordance  with  this  the  bone-caves 
of  South  America,  belonging  to  the  recent  tertiary  period, 
furnish  us  with  fossil  sloths,  armadillos,  cavys,  ctenomys, 
and  platyrrhine  monkeys  :  they  are  not,  however,  of  the 
same  species  as  the  living  ones,  and  they  are  generally 


Fig.  31.    Rudimentary  Ear-Moving  ]Muscles  in  the  Human  Head.     (After 

Haeckel.) 


much  larger ;  but  none  of  these  are  found  in  recent  ter- 
tiary deposits  of  Europe,  Asia,  or  Africa.  If  the  present 
mammals  of  South  America  are  the  modified  descendants 
of  its  tertiary  mammals,  this  is  just  what  we  should  expect ; 
but  if  the  species  of  animals  were  miraculously  created, 
no  good  reason  can  be  given  why  these  forms  should 
have  been  restricted  to  the  South  American  continent, 
when  they  can  just  as  well  live  on  all  the  others. 


72  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

New  Zealand  has  very  few  indigenous  mammals,  a  bat, 
a  mouse,  and  perhaps  a  kind  of  fox,  being  all ;  but  it  has 
a  family  of  wingless  birds,  of  which  there  are  three  spe- 
cies. In  accordance  with  this  no  fossil  mammals  have 
been  found  in  New  Zealand,  but  several  species  of  wing- 
less birds,  some  of  gigantic  size. 

Of  more  than  forty  species  of  mammals  indigenous  to 
Australia,  all  but  one  or  two  are  marsupial ;  and  the  fos- 
sil mammals,  though  in  some  cases  as  large  as  the  rhi- 
noceros, were  also  marsupial.  If  the  wingless  birds  of 
New  Zealand  and  the  pouched  mammals  of  Australia  are 
naturally  descended  from  similar,  though  generally  more 
gigantic,  wingless  birds  and  pouched  mammals  of  the 
tertiary  times,  this  is  just  what  we  should  expect  to  find ; 
but,  if  animals  were  specially  created  for  their  respective 
localities,  why  should  such  countries  as  Australia,  Tas- 
mania, and  New  Zealand  be  destitute  of  the  horse,  the 
sheep,  the  bos,  and  the  goat,  to  which  they  are  so  well 
adapted  ? 

GEOLOGICAL   SUCCESSION. 

This  is  also  an  important  pointer.  Had  man  made  his 
appearance  on  the  planet  with  no  preceding  forms  at  all 
resembling  him,  had  the  animals  of  the  present  time  had 
no  predecessors  in  the  earlier  times  with  which  we  could 
connect  them,  we  should  have  naturally  supposed  that 
they  were  created  instantly  and  full-grown.     But  man  is 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  73 

only  the  last  link  of  a  chain  that  extends  through  the 
ages  :  we  do  not  see  all  the  links  ;  but  we  see  a  sufficient 
number  to  assure  us  that  they  are  all  there,  and  the  chain 
has  never  been  broken.  If  man  has  come  by  gradual 
advancement  from  the  simplest  organic  forms  produced 
spontaneously,  we  should  find,  as  we  trace  living  beings 
backward  through  the  geologic  ages,  that  they  constantly 
become  simpler  in  structure,  and  bear  a  nearer  resem- 
blance to  the  primitive  forms,  from  which  we  may  reason- 
ably suppose  them  to  have  been  developed.  This  is  just 
what  we  find.  Below  the  pliocene  tertiary,  all  traces  of 
man  are  lost,  but  his  brute  relations,  the  monkeys,  are 
numerous  :  as  we  descend,  these  become  smaller  in  size, 
and  possess  smaller  and  smoother  brains,  till  in  the  creta- 
ceous beds  all  traces  of  the  monkey  are  gone.  Mammals, 
however,  remain  until  we  reach  the  triassic  age,  when 
we  find  the  largest  smaller  than  a  rabbit  and  as  bird-like 
in  its  organization  as  the  opossum.  Below  the  trias  the 
highest  animals  are  reptiles,  whose  remains  are  found 
through  the  triassic  age  and  the  Permean,  when  they  also 
disappear,  and  amphibians,  the  next  lower  organic  link, 
are  the  highest  representatives  of  life.  These  continue 
until  we  reach  the  earliest  portion  of  the  carboniferous 
period,  when  we  bid  farewell  to  the  amphibians.  Back- 
ward still  to  discover  what  life's  organic  beginnings  were 
like.  Here  in  the  Devonian  are  fishes,  enormous  fishes, 
mailed  fishes,  but  nothing  higher  has  yet  been  found ; 


74  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

for  millions  of  years  we  retreat  through  the  Devonian, 
through  the  Upper  Silurian,  the  fish  dwindling  in  size  and 
numbers  at  every  step,  till  at  last  even  fishes  have  van- 
ished. But  shells  remain,  some  of  them  enormous ; 
orthoceratites,  fifteen  to  twenty  feet  long,  their  muscular 
arms  outspread  and  their  spire-like  shells  pointing  up- 
ward, as  they  crawl  over  the  sea-bottom  and  seize  their 
prey.  We  pass  through  the  Silurian  into  the  Cambrian ; 
and,  as  we  go,  the  shells  dwindle,  till  the  largest  is  no 
larger  than  the  finger-nail ;  and  the  shells  in  their  turn 
disappear.  Is  there  any  thing  left  ?  In  the  very  lowest 
beds  of  the  Cambrian  we  find  radiated,  fan-like  forms, 
belonging,  it  is  generally  believed,  to  the  radiata ;  and 
these  are  the  highest  expressions  of  life.  If  eozoon 
should  prove  to  be  an  animal,  then  in  the  very  lowest 
beds  in  which  the  remains  of  organic  beings  have  been 
found,  the  protozoa,  the  lowest  of  all  animals,  are  the  only 
evidences  that  we  find  of  life's  organized  embodiment. 

INSULAR    ORGANIC    RESEMBLANCE. 

The  resemblance  that  is  found  between  animals  and 
plants  on  islands  and  those  found  on  the  neighboring 
mainland  constitutes  another  important  pointer.  On  the 
Galapagos  Islands,  which  are  six  hundred  miles  north- 
west of  South  America,  are  found  birds,  tortoises,  igu- 
anas, crabs,  beetles  and  plants,  nearly  all  differing  specifi- 
cally from  those  of  other  localities.     Darwin,  who  visited 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAM.  75 

the  islands,  and  carefully  examined  the  animals  and 
plants,  says,  "  Here  almost  every  product  of  the  land 
and  water  bears  the  unmistakable  stamp  of  the  American 
continent.  There  are  twenty-six  land-birds,  and  twenty- 
one,  perhaps  twenty-three,  of  these  are  ranked  as  distinct 
species,  and  are  supposed  to  have  been  created  here  ;  yet 
the  close  affinity  of  most  of  these  birds  to  American 
species  in  every  character,  in  their  habits,  gestures,  and 
tones  of  voice,  was  manifest.  So  it  is  with  the  other 
animals  and  with  nearly  all  the  plants."  The  animals 
and  plants  of  New  Guinea  in  like  manner  resemble  those 
of  Australia,  to  which  the  island  is  contiguous.  Those 
found  in  Java  are  like  those  living  on  the  Asiatic  conti- 
nent. Cape  Verde  species  resemble  those  of  Africa,  near 
to  which  it  lies ;  and  those  of  New  Zealand  are  like  the 
species  living  on  x\ustralia,  the  nearest  large  body  of 
land. 

We  cannot  conceive  that  a  Creator,  as  the  Galapagos 
Islands  successively  came  up  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea 
(for  they  are  volcanic),  made  the  birds,  tortoises,  igu- 
anas, crabs,  beetles,  and  plants  for  them  like  those  of  the 
nearest  land,  yet  specifically  distinct  from  them.  It  is 
evident  that  when  the  Galapagos  Islands  arose  from  the 
deep,  they  received  most  of  their  tenants  from  the  neigh- 
boring continent :  some  may  have  been  developed  there, 
some  flew  there,  some  were  blown  by  the  winds,  others 
wafted  by  the  waves,  and  still  others  carried  by  birds 


76  JS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

Separated  as  they  were  from  the  original  forms  for  long 
periods  of  time  and  under  different  conditions,  they  devi- 
ated from  them  so  far  as  to  produce  new  species,  but  the 
likeness  to  their  progenitors  is  still  retained. 

Had  the  islands  never  received  any  tenants  from  other 
localities,  they  would  probably  have  been  peopled  by 
animals  and  plants  exclusively  indigenous ;  but  for  life  to 
advance  from  the  protozoa,  to  reptiles  and  birds,  may 
require,  even  where  conditions  are  favorable,  vast  ages 
for  its  accomplishment. 

ANTIQUITY    OF   MAN. 

If  man  first  made  his  appearance  upon  this  planet 
about  six  thousand  years  ago,  then  we  can  be  sure  he  is 
not  of  natural  origin  :  nothing  short  of  a  miracle  could 
have  given  him  in  so  short  a  time  the  perfection  to  which 
we  know  he  had  attained  at  about  that  period.  If  we 
can  prove  that  he  has  been  here  for  a  hundred  thousand 
years,  it  does  not  follow  that  he  was  not  miraculously 
created ;  but,  taken  with  a  multitude  of  other  concur- 
ring facts,  this  also  points  in  the  direction  of  man's 
natural  evolution. 

It  is  but  a  short  time  since  it  was  generally  taught,  and 
almost  universally  believed,  that  the  earth  is  but  six  thou- 
sand years  old,  and  that  it,  together  with  the  rest  of  the 
universe,  compared  with  the  known  portion  of  which  our 
planet  is  small  as  an  invisible  atom,  were  made  in   six 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  77 

days,  of  twenty-four  hours  each.  This  Liliputian  chro- 
nology is,  indeed,  still  insisted  upon  by  some  antiquated 
theologians,  and  taught  in  many  of  the  Sunday  schools, 
even  of  New  England. 

The  young  but  lusty  science  of  geology  has  made 
great  havoc  with  this  venerable  idea :  tearing  down  the 
curtain  our  ignorance  had  woven,  it  revealed  to  our 
astonished  gaze  ages  innumerable,  stretching  away  into 
the  past  so  far  that  our  mental  eyes  were  strained  in  the 
attempt  to  see  their  distant  boundary,  while  marching 
through  them  we  beheld  a  procession  of  innumerable 
life-forms,  many  of  them  such  as  painter  never  limned 
and  of  which  poet  never  dreamed. 

It  seems  strange  to  us  now,  that,  with  so  many  marks 
of  the  earth's  great  age  surrounding  us,  we  could  ever 
have  made  so  grave  a  mistake  as  we  did.  Here  are  trees 
that  must  have  been  saplings  at  the  dawn  of  creation, 
supposing  that  creation  to  be  as-  recent  as  was  then 
believed ;  deltas,  such  as  those  at  the  mouths  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  Ganges,  that  must  have  taken  at  least  half  a 
million  of  years  to  form ;  canons  a  mile  deep,  made  by 
rivers  that  must  have  rolled  through  them  for  ages ;  and 
seven  miles  of  fossiliferous  rocks,  abounding  with  the 
remains  of  myriads  of  strange  beings,  that  could  only 
have  come  into  existence  and  become  extinct  during 
periods  too  large  for  the  human  intellect  to  grasp. 

The    evidences   of  man's   great  antiquity  are  now  as 


78  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

clearly  presented  to  the  eye  of  the  archaeologist,  as  that 
of  the  earth's  so  much  greater  age  is  presented  to  the 
vision  of  the  geologist ;  so  that,  as  J.  P.  Leslie  says,  "  we 
can  regard  as  perfectly  certain  that  the  known  historical 
period  is  a  mere  nothing  in  point  of  time,  compared 
with  the  periods  during  which  our  race  has  actually 
inhabited  the  earth ;  or,  as  Lyell  significantly  expresses 
it,  this  historical  period  is  comparatively  only  a  creature 
of  yesterday.  In  this  opinion  all  students  of  the  subject 
now  agree,  even  those  who  were  formerly  the  most  obsti- 
nate of  its  opponents."  Again  he  says,  "  My  own  belief 
is  but  the  reflection  of  the  growing  sentiment  of  the 
whole  geological  world,  —  a  conviction  strengthening 
every  day,  as  you  may  with  little  trouble  see  for  your- 
selves, by  glancing  through  the  magazines  of  current 
scientific  literature,  —  that  our  race  has  been  upon  the 
earth  for  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  !  "^ 

If  we  had  to  depend  upon  tradition  alone  for  our 
knowledge  of  past  events,  we  should  be  able  to  look 
back  but  a  short  distance  in  the  history  of  humanity. 
In  this  country  the  great  events  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion would  be  vivid  in  the  minds  of  many,  and  we  might 
learn  the  truth  with  regard  to  the  most  important ;  but 
the  discovery  of  America  by  Columbus  would  exist  only 
as  a  faint  tradition,  and  the  history  of  the  world  before 
that  time  would  be  all  but  a  perfect  blank.     In  fact,  it  has 

*  Man's  Origin  and  Destiny,  p.  66, 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  79 

been  found  that  tribes  having  no  written  records  lose  the 
most  important  events  in  their  history  in  a  hundred  years. 

By  printed  and  written  documents,  handed  down  from 
one  generation  to  another,  we  can,  however,  pass  up  the 
stream  of  time,  and  mark  important  events  that  have 
transpired  for  thousands  of  years.  We  thus  learn  that 
Jesus,  the  Galilaean  reformer,  lived  nearly  nineteen  cen- 
turies ago  ;  that  Socrates,  the  sage  of  Greece,  died  four 
centuries  before  that;  that  the  poet  Homer  sang  about 
five  centuries  earlier ;  and  that  Solomon's  reign  in  Jeru- 
salem is  separated  from  our  time  about  twenty-nine 
hundred  years.  All  scholars  agree  that  dates  received 
from  written  documents  prior  to  this  are  very  uncertain. 
The  date  of  Abraham's  birth  has  been  placed  at  about 
thirty-five  hundred  years  ago,  and  this  is  probably  not  far 
from  the  truth ;  yet,  in  the  time  of  Abraham,  Egypt  was 
a  flourishing  nation,  with  kings  and  princes,  and  a  civili- 
zation of  great  antiquity. 

When  written  documents  fail,  monuments  and  inscrip- 
tions, especially  those  of  Egypt,  enable  us  to  travel  much 
farther  into  humanity's  past.  The  Pyramids  of  Egypt 
are  in  some  respects  the  most  remarkable  exhibitions  of 
man's  constructive  ability  on  the  globe.  The  largest 
covers  about  twelve  acres  :  it  is  four  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  high,  and  is  estimated  to  contain  more  than  six 
million  tons  of  stone.  Lenormant,  the  French  historian, 
says  of  it,  "  With  all  the  progress  of  knowledge,  it  would 


8o  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

be,  even  in  our  days,  a  problem  difficult  to  solve,  to  con- 
struct, as  the  Egyptian  architects  of  the  fourth  dynasty 
have  done,  in  such  a  mass  as  that  of  the  pyramid,  cham- 
bers and  passages,  which,  in  spite  of  the  millions  of  tons 
IDressing  on  them,  have,  for  sixty  centuries,  preserved 
their  original  shape,  without  crack  or  flaw." 

The  age  of  this  pile  is  uncertain,  but  may  be  safely  set 
at  five  thousand  years.  Humboldt  makes  the  following 
statement  regarding  the  age  of  it,  and  the  two  pyramids 
in  its  vicinity  :  "  The  valley  of  the  Nile,  which  has  occu- 
pied so  distinguished  a  place  in  the  history  of  man,  yet 
preserves  authentic  portraits  of  kings  as  far  back  as  the 
commencement  of  the  fourth  dynasty  of  Manetho.  His 
dynasty,  which  embraces  the  construction  of  the  great 
pyramids  of  Ghiza,  Chefren,  and  Cheops,  commences 
more  than  thirty-four  hundred  years  B.  C." 

But  this  was  in  the  fourth  dynasty  of  Eg}^ptian  kings ; 
civilization  in  Egypt  must  have  been  vastly  older  than 
this.  Humboldt,  referring  to  the  age  of  that  pre-exist- 
ing civilization,  says,  "  In  the  dimness  of  antiquity,  which 
constitutes,  as  it  were,  the  extreme  horizon  of  true  histor- 
ical knowledge,  we  see  many  luminous  points  or  cen- 
tres of  civilization,  simultaneously  blending  their  rays. 
Among  these  we  may  reckon  Egypt,  at  least  five  thou- 
sand years  before  our  era."  ^  Baldwin  says,  "  It  is  now  as 
certain  as  any  thing  else  in  ancient  history,  that  Egypt 

*  Cosmos,  vol.  ii.,  p.  114,  Harper's  edition,  1856. 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  8i 

existed  as  a  civilized  country  not  less  than  five  thousand 
years  earlier  than  the  birth  of  Christ."  ^ 

We  are  back  now  nearly  seven  thousand  years,  and  we 
fjnd  Egypt  is  a  civilized  country ;  and  this  presupposes  a 
})eriod  of  many  thousand  years,  during  which  the  people 
were  passing  from  a  condition  of  barbarism  to  that  of 
civilization.  Can  any  light  be  shed  upon  this  still  more 
ancient  time  ?  We  find  in  all  civilized  countries,  where 
the  materials  could  be  obtained,  that  man  passed  suc- 
cessively through  an  age  called  the  stone  age,  when  his 
implements  were  made  of  stone,  and  another  called  the 
bronze  age,  in  which  they  were  made  of  bronze,  before 
he  attained  to  the  iron  age  and  historic  civilization.  We 
have  reason  to  believe  that  iron  was  used  in  Egypt  when 
the  Pyramids  were  built.  But  we  find  bronze  chisels  in 
her  ancient  mines,  and  bronze  adzes,  hatchets,  saws,  fal- 
chions, and  battle-axes  in  her  most  ancient  tombs.  Older 
than  all  these,  however,  was  her  stone  age,  when  iron, 
tin,  and  copper  were  alike  unknown.  Enormous  quanti- 
ties of  flint  implements  have  been  discovered  in  Egypt, 
says  W.  Boyd  Dawkins."  Sir  John  Lubbock  found  flint 
implements  in  Egypt  in  great  numbers,  on  the  slopes  of 
the  hifls,  on  the  lower  plateaus,  and,  "in  fact,  wherever 
flint  was  abundant  and  of  good  quality."  Several  that 
he  found  resembled  those  discovered  in  the  gravel-beds 
of  the  Somme.^     Many  have  been  found  by  other  col- 

1  Pre-hlstoric  Nations,  p.  32.  ^  Nature,  vol.  xiii.,  p.  245. 

3  Journal  Anthropological  Institute,  vol.  iv.,  p.  215. 


82  IS  DAI^lV/iV  RIGHT? 

lectors ;  and  it  is  unquestionable  that  in  the  valley  of  the 
Nile,  man  advanced  from  gross  barbarism,  at  a  time  when 
a  rudely  fashioned  stone  was  his  only  weapon  to  defend 
himself  against  the  wild  beasts  that  must  have  then 
lurked  in  the  valley,  step  by  step,  doubtless  painfully  and 
slowly,  to  brick-moulding,  monument-chiselling,  pyramid- 
raising,  and  the  civilization  that  characterized  him  seven 
thousand  years  ago. 

The  earliest  portion  of  this  stone  age,  judging  from 
w^hat  we  know  of  it  in  otlier  countries,  must  have  been 
enormously  remote.  In  England,  Wales,  Scotland,  Ire- 
land, on  the  Hebrides,  the  Orkney  and  Shetland  Islands, 
in  Ireland,  France,  Belgium,  Germany,  Scandinavia, 
Greece,  Italy,  Portugal,  Russia,  Spain,  Switzerland,  and 
Turkey,  Palestine,  Egypt,  China,  and  Japan,  have  been 
found  within  the  last  twenty-five  years,  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  arrows,  celts,  chisels,  axes,  hammers,  knives,  and 
other  articles  of  stone,  which  represent  the  stone  age  in 
human  history,  long  before  man  had  formed  the  first  letter 
to  record  the  steps  of  his  progress. 

Around  the  shores  of  the  lakes  of  Switzerland  and 
Northern  Italy,  we  can  read  most  clearly  the  story  of  the 
bronze  age  and  the  more  recent  part  of  the  stone  age  in 
human  history ;  for  during  that  time  human  beings  occu- 
pied houses  built  on  platforms  laid  upon  piles  driven  into 
the  lakes  around  their  borders ;  and  for  thousands  of 
years  there  they  lived,  worked,  kissed  and  married,  quar- 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  %7^ 

relied,  laughed,  wept,  and  died,  dropping  from  time  to 
time  their  tools  and  utensils  into  the  lake,  where  they 
were  covered  with  mud,  and  were  thus  well  preserved. 
At  Morges  on  Lake  Geneva,  at  Nidau  on  Lake  Bienne, 
Estavayer,  Cortaillod  and  Corcelettes,  on  Lake  Neu- 
chatel,  4,416  objects  of  bronze  were  found,  consisting  of 
axes,  knives,  lances,  sickles,  pins,  rings,  ear-rings,  brace- 
lets, fish-hooks,  (S:c.,  yet  not  a  particle  of  iron,  and  but 
few  objects  of  stone.  At  Morges  fifty  bronze  axes  were 
found,  and  not  one  of  stone. 

At  these  places  it  is  evident  there  were  settlements 
during  the  age  of  bronze.  In  them  lived  a  people  who 
melted  copper  and  tin,  and  cast  various  bronze  articles, 
for  a  bar  of  tin  and  moulds  for  casting  have  been  found. 
These  people,  as  we  have  learned  from  their  remains, 
cultivated  the  soil,  domesticated  animals,  and  possessed 
the  arts  of  turning  pottery  and  weaving  cloth.  How 
long  this  was  ago  we  cannot  yet  tell.  It  may  have  been 
since  the  Pyramids  were  built ;  but,  if  so,  we  cannot 
regard  it  as  long  subsequent  to  that  event,  for  history 
knows  nothing  of  these  lake-dwellers. 

But  before  them  dwelt  a  people  in  Switzerland  much 
more  rude,  —  the  men  of  the  stone  age.  At  Wangen  on 
Lake  Constance,  Pont  de  Thiele  on  Lake  Bienne,  at 
jNIoosedorf  on  Lake  Moosedorf,  and  at  Wauwyl  on 
Lake  Lucerne,  there  have  been  collected  3,994  articles 
made  of  stone  and  bone,  axes,  flakes,  whetstones,  corn- 


S4  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

crushers,  axe-handles,  awls,  &c.,  yet  not  a  single  article 
of  bronze  or  iron.  M.  Lohle  found  at  Wangan,  on  Lake 
Constance,  eleven  hundred  axes,  one  hundred  whet- 
stones, one  hundred  and  fifty  corn-crushers,  two  hundred 
and  sixty  arrow-heads  and  flint-flakes,  besides  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  articles  of  bone,  and  one  hundred  of 
earthenware,  and  yet  not  a  trace  of  metal. 

These  were  a  ruder  people  :  they  cut  down  trees  by 
burning  around  them,  and  cutting  off  the  charred  por- 
tion wirh  their  stone  axes ;  their  pottery  is  very  rude  and 
coarse ;  the  potter's  wheel  was  unknown,  and  the  baking 
was  poorly  done  :  the  only  ornamentation  consists  of 
simple  lines  or  furrows.  They  were  by  no  means  sav- 
ages :  they  practised  spinning  and  weaving  to  a  certain 
extent,  and  made  rude  cloth  of  flax ;  they  had  domesti- 
ca'"ed  the  dog,  pig,  horse,  f^oat,  sheep,  and  at  least  two 
kindh,  of  oxen.  They  fed  very  largely  on  the  flesh  of 
wild  animals ;  among  thf.m  the  urus,  or  great  fossil  ox, 
the  bison,  the  elk,  the  stag,  and  the  wild  boar,  which  are 
no  longer  found  in  Switzerland,  and  the  beaver,  bear,  and 
ibex,  which  are  now  rare.  The  Swiss  archaeologists  gen- 
erally assign  to  this  stone  period  an  age  of  from  five  to 
seven  thousand  years. 

Many  of  the  stone  tools  and  weapons  found  in  the  Swiss 
lakes,  and  which  represent  this  age,  are  very  well  formed, 
and  others  were  finished  by  laborious  rubbing  and  polish- 
ing.    There  was,  however,  a  still  older  period  in  human 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  85 

Tiistory,  when  all  the  stone  weapons  and  implements  were 
rude  and  unpolished.  The  time  when  the  Swiss  lakes 
were  occupied  by  men  who  were  in  the  stone  age,  and  the 
time  when  men  carefully  fabricated  and  polished  their  arti- 
cles of  stone,  has  been  called  the  neolithic  age,  or  the  new 
stone  age  ;  and  the  older  tmie,  when  they  made  only  rude 
and  unpolished  weapons,  has  been  called  the  paleolithic 
age,  or  the  old  stone  age ;  and  this  carries  us  very  much 
farther  into  the  past.  When  we  go  backward  to  the  old 
stone  age  in  France,  Belgium,  and  Great  Britain,  we  find 
ourselves  in  a  strange  land,  and  in  strange  company. 
S'.icep  and  goats  are  entirely  v/anting ;  the  hog  is  very 
rare,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  think  it  was  domesticated ; 
while  the  remains  of  strange  animals,  some  of  which  are 
only  strange,  however,  in  those  countries,  are  found  in 
great  abundance,  such  as  the  mammoth,  reindeer,  musk- 
ox,  ibex,  marmot,  chamois,  and  the  woolly  rhinoceros, 
indicating  a  very  cold  climate  ;  and  the  cave-lion,  cave- 
tiger,  cave-hyena,  machairodus,  hippopotamus,  and  other 
species  of  rhinoceroses  and  elephants,  in  all  probability 
smooth-skinned,  indicating  a  warmer  climate,  and  one 
even  warmer  than  exists  to-day  in  the  countries  where  we 
find  these  remains. 

We  thus  find  the  paleolithic  age  naturally  dividing 
itself  into  two  periods,  in  the  former  of  which  the 
climate  was  very  much  colder  than  it  is  now,  like  that 
of  Northern  Greenland  and  Lapland,  and  the  other  in 


86  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

which  it  was  considerably  warmer,  something  Hke  that  of 
Southern  Africa.  The  cold  period,  we  have  good  reason 
to  believe,  was  the  glacial  period,  and  the  warm  period 
was  pre-glacial,  or  pliocene  tertiary,  before  the  winter  of 
the  ages  came  on. 

In  caves  of  France,  Belgium,  and  Great  Britain,  have 
been  found  in  great  abundance  implements  of  stone  and 
bone,  associated  with  the  remains  of  various  arctic  ani- 
mals, showing  us  that  man  must  have  lived  in  the  heart 
of  Belgium  and  France  a  life  very  similar  to  that  of  the 
Esquimaux,  surrounded  as  he  was  by  similar  conditions 
to  those  that  surround  them  ;  while  in  the  same  countries 
we  find  abundant  evidence  of  his  occupation  of  those 
lands  during  the  previous  warmer  time,  when  the  hippo- 
potamus bathed  in  the  Tees  and  the  Humber,  when 
gigantic  elephants  wandered  through  the  woods  of 
France  and  England,  when  lions  lurked  in  their  caves, 
and  various  species  of  the  rhinoceros  wallowed  in  their 
pools. 

From  Mr.  Pengelly's  careful  study  of  the  formation  of 
stalagmite  in  Kent's  Cave  in  Devonshire,  England,  he 
calculates  for  the  formation  of  five  feet  of  it,  which  cov- 
ers up  implements  that  were  deposited  by  man,  and  the 
bones  of  extinct  animals,  no  less  a  period  than  three 
hundred  thousand  years.^     This  may  be  an  extravagant 

'  Lecture  of  William  Pengelly,  F.R.S.,  on  the  time  that  has  elapsed  since 
the  era  of  the  cave-men  of  Devonshire. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


87 


estimate ;  but  the  stalagmite  covering  represents  but  a 
small  portion  of  the  period  of  man's  occupancy  of  the 
South  of  England,  as  presented  in  this  cave.  I  have 
seen  the  beds  of  gravel  in  the  neighborhood  of  Abbe- 
ville, from  which  M.  de  Perthes  obtained  so  many  flint 
weapons  (Fig.  32),  in  connection  with  the  remains  of  the 


Fig.  32.  —  Spear  of  the  Paleolithic  or  Old  Stone  Age,  from  the  gravel-beds  of 

Abbeville,  France.     (Original.) 


elephant,  rhinoceros,  hippopotamus,  &c. ;  and  I  have  no 
doubt  that  those  weapons  lay  on  the  banks  of  the  Somme 
during  the  pre-glacial  time,  as  I  have  seen  innumerable 
chert  weapons  lying  on  the  banks  of  American  streams, 
and  that  they,  when  the  ice  suddenly  melted  that  lay  over 
the  country  to  the  north  during  the  glacial  period,  were 
swept  by  the  waters  of  the  swollen  river  into  the  old  bed 
of  the  stream,  now  the  gravel  deposit,  where  they  are 
discovered  at  the  present  time.  I  think  no  geologist  can 
place  the  commencement  of  the  glacial  period  nearer  to 
our  own  time  than  a  hundred  thousand  years,  and  then 


88  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

he  must  tliink  there  is  a  strong  probabiHty  of  its  being 
much  more  remote. 

Still  more  ancient  must  be  the  remains  of  man,  found 
in  pliocene  beds  of  California.  Professor  J.  D.  Whitney, 
in  a  lecture  delivered  in  Cambridge,  Mass.,  thus  refers  to 
the  most  ancient  human  remains  known  to  us  at  the 
present  time  :  "  During  the  pHocene,  California  and  Ore 
gon  became  the  theatre  of  the  most  tremendous  volcanic 
activity  that  has  devastated  the  surface  of  the  globe. 
The  valleys  of  the  rivers  in  the  Sierra  were  filled,  and 
much  of  the  country,  particularly  toward  the  north  of 
California,  was  entirely  buried  in  lava  and  ashes.  Since 
then  the  rivers,  seeking  new  channels,  have  made  for 
themselves  deep  canons,  leaving  their  old  beds  deeply 
buried  under  the  lava.  These  old  buried  river-gravels 
are  very  rich  in  gold,  and  extensive  tunnelling  into  the 
sides  of  the  mountains  and  under  the  old  lavas  has  been 
done.  In  one  of  these  old  river-bottoms,  under  the 
solid  basalt  of  Table  Mountain,  many  relics  of  human 
art  have  been  obtained."  In  1866  a  skull  was  found 
on  Bald  Mountain,  near  Angels,  in  Calaveras  County,  one 
hundred  and  thirty  feet  from  the  surface,  under  four  beds 
of  lava,  and  in  close  proximity  to  a  petrified  tree. 

"  The  age  of  these  deposits  under  the  lavas  is  known 
to  be  pliocene,  on  account  of  the  remains  of  the  contem- 
poraneously buried  flora  and  fauna,  which  were  almost 
totally  unlike  the  flora  and   fauna   of  California   at    the 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


89 


present  time.      That  the  skull  was  found  in  these  old, 

intact,  cemented  gravels,  has  been  abundandy  proved  by 

evidence  that    cannot  be 

gainsaid.     At  the  time  it 

came    into  the  speaker's 

hands,  the  skull  was  still 

embedded    in    a    great 

measure    in    its  originally 

gravelly   matrix.  ...    In 

and  about  the  skull  were 

found  other  human  bones,    "^^^H 

including  some   that    must   ^^^-  33-  —  Calaveras  County  Skull.     Care- 
fully drawn  from  a  photograph. 

have  belonged  to  an  in- 
fant."    (Fig.  ^2>-) 

When  lecturing  at  Sonora,  near  where  the  skull  was 
found,  I  visited  the  spot,  and  talked  with  men  who  were 
conversant  with  the  facts  regarding  its  discovery,  and 
became  satisfied  that  there  is  no  reasonable  doubt  of  its 
genuineness.  We  only  need  to  glance  at  the  position  of 
the  skull  (Fig.  34),  and  learn  the  facts  regarding  the  age 
of  the  beds  that  lie  above  it,  to  learn  that  man's  age  upon 
this  planet  is  immense.  Professor  Whitney  sums  up  the 
facts  in  connection  with  the  discovery  of  human  remains 
and  relics  in  ancient  Californian  deposits,  in  language  of 
which  the  following  is  a  portion  :  "  There  is  a  large  body 
of  evidence,  the  strength  of  which  it  is  impossible  to 
deny,  which  seems  to  prove  that  man  existed  in  Califor- 


IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


1. 
I 
4 

7 

8 
% 

10 


nia  previous  to  the  cessation  of  volcanic  activity  in  the 
Sierra  Nevada,  to  the  epoch  of  the  greatest  extension  of 
the  glaciers  in  that  region,  and  to  the  erosion  of  the  pres- 
ent river  canons  and  valleys,  at 
a  time  when  the  animal  and 
vegetable  creations  differed  en- 
tirely from  what  they  now  are, 
and  when  the  topographical 
features  of  the  State  were  ex- 
tremely unlike  those  exhibited 
by  the  present  surface."  ^  Man 
in  California  saw  a  lava  stream 
flow  for  forty  miles  down  the 
bed  of  the  old  Stanislaus  River ; 
and  we  now  see  that  lava  stream, 
in  consequence  of  the  wearing- 
down  of  the  surrounding  rocks, 
a  mountain,  known  as  the  Table 
Mountain.  "There  has  been, 
therefore,"    says   Whitney,    "  an 


n 


Ir  ■  .;'  .•.-.•.*.■--..   .,-.-. 


■*^^J\^,§^^^^^<VxX^^ 


Fig.  34.  —  Bed  in  which  the  Ca- 
laveras County  skull  was  found. 
I.  black  lava,  40  ft.;  2.  grav- 
el, 3  ft.;  3.  light  lava,  30  ft.; 
4.  gravel,  5  ft.;  5.  light  lava, 
15   ft.;    6.    gravel,    25   ft.;    7. 

dark   brown  lava,  9  ft.;   8.    amount    of    dcnudatiou    during 

gravel,   5  ft.   (in  this  bed   the 

skull  was  found) ;    9.  red  lava,      the      pCHOd     sinCC     this    VOlcauic 

4  ft.;    10.   gravel,   17  ft.;    11.  4.       i       v  ^ 

gj^^g  mass    took   its  present  position, 

of  not   less    than   three  or  four 
thousand  feet  of  perpendicular  depth." "     The  rock  that 

^  Auriferous  Gravels  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  of  California,  by  J.  D.  Whitney, 
p.  288. 

2  Geological  Survey  of  California,  vol.  i.,  p.  244. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  91 

has  thus  been  denuded  is  principally  hard  slate ;  but  the 
trap  of  Table  Mountain  seems  almost  indestructible  by 
time.  It  stands  to-day  a  monument  of  man's  immense 
age  on  our  planet,  for  many  human  relics  have  been  found 
under  it  in  various  places ;  and  we  see  that  there  has 
been,  in  all  probability,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years 
for  man  to  advance,  from  the  brutality  that  must  have 
characterized  him  at  his  advent,  to  that  civilization  which 
is  represented  by  the  monuments  of  ancient  Egypt. 

BRUTAL   CHARACTERISTICS. 

Lastly,  the  brutal  characteristics  of  man  at  an  early 
stage  of  his  existence  is  direct  proof  of  his  natural 
origin.  If  man  was  created  by  miracle,  the  earliest 
specimens  of  the  race  we  should  naturally  expect  to  find 
the  most  perfect  specimens  that  the  world  has  seen,  as 
nearest  to  him  who  came  perfect  from  the  hand  of  his 
maker :  but,  if  he  was  evolved  from  an  ape-like  ancestor, 
we  should  expect  to  find  the  characteristics  of  the  brute 
appearing  with  greater  distinctness  in  proportion  to  his 
antiquity ;  and  this  is  what  the  facts  demonstrate. 

Let  us  hear  what  Professor  Wilson  says  of  the  ancient 
man  of  Britain,  or,  as  he  calls  him,  "  the  primeval 
Briton  :  "  "  Intellectually  he  appears  to  have  been  in 
nearly  the  lowest  stage  to  which  an  intelligent  being  can 
sink ;  morally  he  was  the  slave  of  superstitions,  the 
grovelling  character  of  which  can  be    partially  inferred 


92  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

from  the  indications  of  his  sepulchral  rites ;  .  .  .  his 
cerebral  development  was  poor;  .  .  .  the  few  imple- 
ments that  ministered  to  his  limited  necessities  disclose 
only  the  first  rudiments  of  that  inventive  ingenuity  which 
distinguishes  the  reason  of  man  from  the  instincts  of  the 
brutes."  ^  Neither  saints  nor  i\pollos  were  those  ances- 
tors of  ours ;  and  those  who  so  much  dislike  to  hear  of 
our  relationship  to  brutes  may  be  ready  to  deny  that 
these  wretched  creatures  were  of  our  kin. 

Prichard  says,  "  I  have  seen  about  half  a  dozen  skulls 
found  in  different  parts  of  England,  in  situations  which 
rendered  it  highly  probable  that  they  belonged  to  ancient 
Britons.  All  these  partook  of  one  striking  characteristic, 
namely,  a  remarkable  narrowness  of  the  forehead  com- 
pared with  the  occiput,  giving  a  very  small  space  to  the 
anterior  lobes  of  the  brain,  and  allowing  room  for  a  large 
development  of  the  posterior  lobes."  ^  But  just  in  the 
very  way  that  they  differed  from  existing  British  skulls, 
that  made  them  so  remarkable  to  Prichard,  did  they 
resemble  the  skull  of  the  ape,  which  also  gives  a  small 
space  to  the  anterior  lobes,  where  the  man-brain  lies,  and 
allows  room  for  a  large  development  of  the  posterior 
lobes,  in  which  the  brute-brain  is  lodged.  These  old 
Britons,  then,  were  so  much  nearer  to  the  brute  than  the 
modern  ones,  that  their  skulls  tell  the  story  at  a  glance. 

1  Pre-historic  Annals  of  Scotland,  vol.  i.,  p.  40. 

2  History  of  Mankind,  vol.  ii.,  p.  92. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  93 

"Abbe  Frere,  canon  of  the  cathedral  of  Paris,  has 
lately  formed  a  collection  of  ancient  skulls,  sent  to  him 
from  all  parts  of  Europe,  and  has  deduced  from  a  com- 
parison of  them  the  general  conclusion,  that,  in  propor- 
tion as  the  skulls  belonged  to  an  ancient  and  primitive 
race,  in  the  same  proportion  the  frontal  region  is  flat- 
tened, and  the  occipital  developed."  ^  The  older  the 
skulls,  the  more  brutal  were  the  men  that  carried 
them. 

Marcel  de  Serres  says,  "  The  human  skulls  found  in 
various  parts  of  Germany,  in  caves,  or  in  drift  deposits, 
are  altogether  different  from  those  of  the  present  inhabit- 
ants of  the  country."  Some,  he  says,  resemble  those  of 
negroes,  others  the  crania  of  the  ancient  inhabitants 
of  Chili  and  Peru.  Professor  Spring  says  of  these  cra- 
nia, "  The  pieces  of  human  skull  show  that  the  forehead 
was  short  and  much  inchned." 

Professor  Schaffhausen,  on  the  primitive  form  of  the 
human  skull,  concludes  with  these  words :  "  We  may 
regard  it  as  beyond  doubt  that  a  skull  which  does  not 
bear  the  signs  of  a  low  organization  cannot  be  regarded 
as  derived  from  primeval  man,  even  though  it  may  have 
been  found  among  the  bones  of  extinct  animals.  .  .  . 
We  must  now  place  the  man  of  the  primeval  time  a  step 
lower  than  the  rudest  savages  of  the  actual  world. 

'  Dr.  Laycock,  Mind  and  Brain. 

2  Man  in  the  Past,  Present,  and  Future,  Biichner,  p.  266. 


11  2 


94  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

Again  he  remarks,  ''The  shape  of  the  forehead  of 
the  Neanderthal  skull  (Fig.  35),  the  dentition  and  the 
form  of  the  lower  jaw  from  La  Naulette,  and  the  progna- 
thism of  some  children's  jaws  of  the  stone  age  of  West- 
ern Europe,  excel  in  animal-resemblance  any  thing  of 
this  kind  among  living  savages."^ 


Fig.  35. — Comparison  of  Forms  of  Skulls,      i.  European;    2.  Neanderthal;    3. 

Chimpanzee.      (After  Lj-ell.) 

Paul  Broca,  the  anthropologist,  says,  "Thus  we  have 
arrived  at  the  most  ancient  known  epoch  in  the  life  of 
mankind.  What  were  at  that  time  the  physical  charac- 
ters of  man?  The  bones  of  the  members  which  have 
been  found  prove  that  the  stature  was  of  little  height ; 
and  though  the  skulls,  or  remains  of  skulls,  are  still  quite 
rare,  it  may  be  considered  as  very  nearly  demonstrated 
that  our  predecessors  of  the  quaternary  had  the  head 
small,  with  retreating  forehead  and  oblique  jaws."  He 
further  says,  that,  from  the  evidence  furnished,  the  qua- 
ternary man  takes  his  place  "below  the  lowest  types  of 

^  Man  in  the  Past,  Present,  and  Future,  Biichner,  p.  266. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  95 

Australia  and  New  Caledonia,  .  .  .  and  thus  diminishes 
the  interval  which  separates  him  from  his  zoological 
neighbors."  ^ 

Several  ape-hke  lower  human  jaws  have  been  found  of 
great  antiquity.  One  of  these  is  called  the  jaw  of  La 
Naulette,  since  it  was  found  in  a  cave  of  that  name,  in 
Belgium.  A  fragment  of  a  worked  reindeer's  horn  was 
found  with  it,  and  its  age  is  probably  that  of  the  glacial 
time.  It  was  found  at  a  depth  of  about  ten  feet,  in  a 
deposit  of  river-loam.  The  canine  teeth  are  remarkably 
wide  and  large,  as  in  lower  mammals,  the  three  hinder 
molars  are  of  the  same  relative  sizes  as  they  are  gen- 
erally found  in  the  higher  apes,  and  its  prognathism  is 
very  great.  Profj^'SLsor  Schaffhausen  says,  "  It  shows  a 
clearly  animal  prognathism  in  the  absence  of  a  chin, 
a  feature  so  important  in  the  expression  of  the  human 
countenance."  Dr.  Carter,  in  a  report  to  the  London 
Anthropological  Society,  after  comparing  it  with  more 
than  three  thousand  jaws  of  various  races  of  men,  says 
it  presents  characters  which  ally  it  to  those  of  the  col- 
ored races  of  men,  especially  the  Australian,  or  even 
beyond  what  is  found  in  them,  and  he  will  not  "  venture 
to  deny  its  indubitable  similarity  to  the  jaw  of  a  young 
ape."  2 

1  Transactions  of  Anthropological  Fociety  of  Paris.  Smithsonian  Report, 
1868,  p.  306. 

a  Biichner's  Alan  in  llic  Past,  Present,  an^  Fuivive,  p.  307. 


96  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

Another  jaw,  found  in  a  cave  in  Burgundy,  at  Arcy- 
sur-Aube,  associated  with  the  bones  of  extinct  animals, 
possesses  all  the  essential  characters  of  the  jaw  of  La 
Naulette,  though  to  a  less  degree.  "  A  human  lower 
jaw,  found  in  the  cave  of  Frontal,  associated  with  rein- 
deer-bones, is  remarkable  for  the  size  of  the  molars,  and 
the  extraordinary  thickness  of  the  bone  in  the  molar 
region."  ^  A  human  jaw  found  at  Ipswich,  in  Suffolk, 
England,  regarded  as  of  high  antiquity,  manifests  a  very 
low  structure. 

I  have  opened  several  mounds  in  various  parts  of  the 
West,  and  have  examined  a  great  many  ancient  Ameri- 
can skulls,  and  have  never  seen,  among  the  most  brutal 
people  of  this  continent,  any  with  heads  as  deficient  in 
intellectual  development  as  most  of  those  must  have 
been.  The  frontal  bone  of  a  skull  in  my  possession, 
taken  from  a  mound  west  of  Minneapolis,  represents 
the  most  brutal  of  all  skulls  that  I  have  ever  seen  or 
heard  of. 

The  older  the  implements  are  that  we  discover,  and 
the  ruder  their  form,  the  older  the  people,  the  more 
barbarous  their  practices ;  and  we  now  know  that  in 
Scotland,  England,  France,  Belgium,  Italy,  Sicily,  and 
other  European  countries,  the  men  of  the  early  stone 
age  practised  cannibalism,  for  the  remains  of  their 
human    feasts    have    been    found    in   all  these  locahties. 

*  Buchner's  Man  in  ihe  Past,  Present,  and  Future,  p.  307. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  97 

Then  murder  could  have  been  no  crime,  and  benevo- 
lence no  virtue.  It  is  evident  that  the  chasm  between 
man  and  the  brute,  could  we  go  back  to  the  earliest 
specimens  of  our  race,  must  have  been  so  narrow,  that 
not  the  slightest  necessity  existed  for  calling  in  the  aid 
of  miracle  to  span  its  space. 

These  pointers,  like  so  many  rays,  direct  us  to  the 
grand  truth  from  which  they  proceed,  —  the  natural  origin 
of  all  organic  beings,  and  therefore  of  man,  who  ap- 
peared on  the  tree  of  life  when  it  was  fully  grown,  as 
naturally  as  an  apple  appears  upon  an  apple-tree  when 
conditions  have  been  favorable  for  its  development. 

OBJECTIONS   TO    MAN's    NATURAL   ORIGIN. 

The  too  common  reply  to  arguments  of  this  character 
is  that  of  ridicule.  "  Oh,  that  is  it !  we  have  some  ex- 
tinct ape  for  our  father,  and  a  silurian  sea-worm  for  our 
grandfather :  how  thankful  we  should  be  to  those  scien- 
tific gentlemen,  who  have  rescued  from  oblivion  those 
illustrious  ancestors  of  ours  !  "  I  know  of  no  evolutionist 
who  believes  that  man  was  evolved  from  any  of  the  exist- 
ing species  of  apes  ;  yet,  if  we  could  see  the  brutal  ances- 
tors that  fathered  humanity,  we  should  doubdess  call 
them  apes.  But,  if  man  did  not  come  into  existence  as 
a  modification  of  some  pre-existing  and  inferior  being, 
how  was  it  done  ?  Shall  we  be  told  that  man  was  made 
out  of  dust  ?     It  then  follows  that  we  have  dust  for  a  man's 


98  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

father,  and  rock  for  his  grandfather ;  and  this  is  certainly 
no  improvement  upon  the  evolutionist's  pedigree.  But 
we  are  told  that  man  was  made  by  God.  There  is  no 
objection  to  this,  if  a  rational  idea  goes  with  the  word. 
If  by  God  is  meant  a  mighty  mechanic,  who  manipulates 
dust  or  mud,  moulding  it  into  a  man  as  a  sculptor  his 
clay  model,  there  is  no  single  fact  in  the  history  of  the 
planet  or  of  man  that  indicates  the  existence  of  any  such 
being.  But  if  by  God  is  meant  nature,  all  that  is,  or  the 
ever-present  and  ever-operative  spirit  of  the  universe,  then 
man  was  doubtless  made  by  God,  and  made  out  of  dust. 
But  it  is  far  from  the  dust  to  the  man,  and  it  has  passed 
through  myriads  of  forms  to  arrive  at  the  man.  "Yes, 
but  I  believe,"  says  the  accepter  of  miracles,  "  that  man 
was  made  instantly  and  full-grown."  But,  if  man  was 
made  instantly  and  full-grown,  how  were  the  other  forms 
of  life  made?  Were  they  also  made  full-grown  in  an 
instant,  "  whales  in  their  bigness,"  birds  full-feathered, 
horses  with  six-year-old  teeth?  If  they  were,  there  still 
remains  to  be  accounted  for  the  mighty  host  that  rioted 
in  water  and  air  and  on  land  during  the  geologic  ages. 
Were  all  the  specific  forms  of  the  geologic  times  created 
full-grown?  The  Silurian  beds  contain  species  of  sea- 
weeds, corals,  star-fish,  crinoids,  trilobites,  shells,  and 
fishes,  that  are  never  found  in  the  Devonian  beds  above 
them  nor  in  the  Cambrian  and  Laurentian  beds  below. 
So  the  Devonian  beds  contain  thousands  of  species  of 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  99 

plants,  corals,  shells,  and  crustaceans,  no  vestige  of  which 
has  ever  been  found  in  the  carboniferous  beds  above 
them.  Every  geologic  formation  has  its  characteristic 
species  that  are  never  found  outside  of  it :  one  by  one 
old  forms  die  out,  as  the  stars  go  down  in  the  west ;  and 
one  by  one  new  types  of  life  come  into  being,  till  the  old 
are  all  gone,  and  all  forms  are  new.  But  this  is  not  only 
true  of  the  great  formations,  like  the  Silurian  and  Devo- 
nian :  it  is  equally  true  of  every  group  of  rocks  into  which 
the  formations  are  divided.  In  the  Potsdam  sandstone, 
the  lowest  group  of  the  Silurian  in  the  United  States,  we 
find  protozoans,  radiates,  mollusks,  and  articulates  of 
many  species,  that  are  never  found  in  the  calciferous 
sandstone,  the  next  group  above  it ;  the  calciferous  sand- 
stone contains  fossils  that  are  not  to  be  found  in  the 
Trenton  limestone  that  overlies  it ;  and  the  Trenton  con- 
tains hundreds  of  species  that  are  never  seen  in  the 
Niagara,  Clinton,  and  Onondaga  groups  of  the  upper 
Silurian.  Does  any  man  suppose  that  by  miraculous 
creation,  when  the  Potsdam  sandstone  was  laid  down,  a 
few  small  shells  were  made  and  planted  in  a  sandy  coast, 
a  few  unbranching  sea-weeds  on  the  wave-washed  rock, 
and  a  number  of  trilobites  sent  swimming  over  the  water, 
but  in  the  time  of  the  calciferous  sandstone,  the  old 
forms  having  died  out,  a  new  set  of  seaweeds  were  cre- 
ated and  planted  with  longer  and  branching  stems,  a  new 
set  of  shells  with  extra  whorls,  and   a  number  of  new 


lOO  /s  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

trilobites  with  shorter  tails  and  narrower  heads  ?  The  man 
who  entertains  such  an  idea  must  beheve  in  a  new  crea- 
tion for  every  new  island  and  lake,  as  well  as  for  every 
geological  group,  during  the  whole  past  period  of  our 
planet's  history,  —  and  all  this  for  nothing;  for  a  miracle- 
worker  could  have  blown  the  planet  cool  in  one  moment, 
and  set  man  upon  a  finished  world  in  the  next.  Profess- 
or Owen,  referring  to  the  fact  that  all  the  old  coral  polyps 
had  four  rays  or  multiples  of  four,  and  all  the  recent  ones 
six,  or  multiples  of  six,  says,  "  These  grand  old  groups 
have  had  their  day,  and  are  utterly  gone.  When  we  en- 
deavor to  conceive  or  realize  the  miraculous  mode  of 
origin,  not  of  these  only,  but  of  their  manifold  success- 
ors, the  miracle  by  the  very  multiplication  of  its  manifes- 
tations becomes  incredible,  inconsistent  with  any  worthy 
conception  of  an  all-seeing,  all-provident  omnipotence. 
It  is  not  above,  but  against,  reason ;  and  I  may  assume 
the  special  primary  creative  hypothesis  of  the  successive 
and  co-existing  species  of  anthozoa  to  be  not  now  held 
by  the  scientific  naturalist."  But  if  scientific  naturalists 
do  not  believe  that  the  different  species  of  anthozoa,  or 
coral  animals,  were  created  by  miracle,  how  can  they 
believe  that  other  species  of  animals,  in  which  the  dif- 
ference can  hardly  be  considered  greater,  were  created 
by  miracle,  such  as  the  different  species  of  trilobites  and 
cephalopods  that  crowded  the  ancient  seas?  and  if  these 
were  not  created  by  miracle,  what  forms  of  life  were  ?     It 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  lOi 

is  safe  to  say,  that,  as  to  the  gaze  of  all  intelligent  persons, 
miracle  has  vanished  from  the  earth  as  we  now  behold 
it,  so  will  it  vanish  from  the  earth  of  all  the  geologic 
past,  and  it  will  be  universally  acknowledged  that  the 
earth  is  alive,  in  consequence  of  the  living  spirit  that 
embraces  every  atom,  and  that  it  clothes  itself  with  plants 
and  produces  animals  as  naturally  as  a  tree  clothes  itself 
with  leaves  and  produces  blossoms  and  fruits. 

But  I  hear  another  objection  :  "That  we  are  the  de- 
scendants of  apes,  is  one  of  the  most  debasing  thoughts 
that  ever  entered  the  human  mind ;  and  it  shows  to  what 
depths  of  degradation  men  will  sink  when  they  depart 
from  the  living  truth."  Well,  if  we  are  not  descended 
from  some  animal  bearing  a  strong  resemblance  to  living 
apes,  how  did  we  come  into  existence?  The  answer  I 
hear  is,  "  Man  was  created  in  the  fulness  of  time,  the 
world  having  been  made  and  prepared  for  his  advent, 
not  in  the  image  of  a  brutal  ape,  but  in  the  image  of 
God  his  maker ;  for  the  Word  declares,  '  in  the  image  of 
God  created  he  him.'  "  Then  I  see  that  magnificent  man  : 
upright  as  a  palm,  with  a  forehead  more  perfect  than  that 
of  Apollo  ;  no  passion  had  ever  distorted  his  noble  coun- 
tenance, no  lie  had  ever  passed  out  of  the  gate  of  his 
ruby  lips ;  intelligence  beams  from  his  eyes ;  and,  as  he 
walks,  we  say,  "There  goes  a  god."  And  his  companion  ! 
language  fails  us  to  describe  her :  the  lily  and  the  rose 
vie  for  supremacy  upon  her  cheeks,  her  eyes  are  briglit 


102  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

as  the  evening  star,  her  breath  is  sweeter  than  the  violet's 
scent,  and  her  voice  more  melodious  than  a  choir  of. 
angels.  I  see  the  lovely  pair  as  they  walk  through  a  para- 
dise of  ravishing  beauty,  the  boughs  of  the  trees  bending 
as  they  pass,  that  they  may  partake  of  their  blushing 
fruit :  daily  they  live  in  the  smile  of  God  and  one  another. 
Then  I  look  over  the  earth,  and  behold  humanity  as  it 
now  is :  sooty  skins,  thick  hps,  flat  noses,  wedge-shaped 
foreheads,  apish  arms,  hairy  bodies,  spindle  shanks,  pro- 
tuberant bellies,  and  faces  that  seem  as  if  some  farcical 
fiend  had  made  them ;  while  their  minds  and  habits  are 
in  harmony  with  their  bodies,  tobacco-poisoned  mouths, 
betel-stained  lips,  alcohol-fired  brains,  born  thieves,  rest- 
less murderers,  souls  in  which  passion  rages  like  a  furious 
storm  and  the  brute  is  master  of  the  man.  And  all  this 
in  less  than  six  thousand  years  !  At  the  same  rate  of  de- 
gradation where  will  our  offspring  be  in  six  thousand  more 
years  ?  Some  of  them  chattering  monkeys,  fighting  with 
their  hairy  brothers  among  the  wild-orange  groves  of 
Florida ;  in  six  thousand  more,  grunting  hogs,  pushing 
each  other  for  the  mast  that  autumn  shakes  to  the 
ground ;  then,  slimy  reptiles  crawling  over  the  ruins 
where  men  have  been  ;  others,  retaining  the  human  form, 
sink  in  iniquity  till  the  earth  becomes  one  vast  pande- 
monium of  brutality  and  crime,  and  God  in  his  mercy  at 
last  purifies  the  world  by  fire,  and  a  bottomless  pit  swal- 
lows the  degraded  remnant  of  the  race. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  103 

But  if  from  invisible  gelatinous  globules,  that  floated 
in  the  primal  seas,  life  has  advanced  to  crawling  worm, 
balancing  fish,  hopping  batrachian,  tree-climbing  marsu- 
pial, mimicking  ape,  to  the  men  and  women  of  this  age, 
what  may  we  not  be  in  the  ages  to  come ?  Ihere  is  no 
song  of  an  angel  too  sweet  for  us  to  sing,  no  glory  that 
a  God  can  bestow  that  we  shall  be  unworthy  to  receive. 
The  "  degrading  idea  "  appears  to  be  very  decidedly  on 
the  other  side  of  this  question. 

*/  Then  I  hear,  "  missing  link,"  "  see  the  immense  chasm 
that  separates  man  from  the  brute,  a  chasm  that  none  but 
a  God  by  miracle  could  bridge."  There  stands  a  pillar 
two  hundred  feet  high,  and  on  the  summit  I  see  a  man ; 
but,  what  surprises  me,  there  is  nothing  visible  by  which 
he  could  have  attained  the  eminence.  I  say  to  the 
by-standers,  "  How  did  the  man  get  on  the  top  of  the 
pillar?  "  —  "I  can  tell  you,"  replies  one,  "just  how  it  was 
done  :  an  angel  came  down  from  heaven,  took  him  by 
the  hair  of  the  head,  and  set  him  on  top  of  the  pillar." 
This  does  not  appear  reasonable  to  me,  and  I  approach 
the  pillar,  to  discover  the  way  in  which  he  ascended  : 
on  reaching  the  other  side,  I  find  a  ladder,  reaching  from 
the  ground  to  the  summit,  but  I  notice  that  some  of  the 
rounds  are  wanting ;  there  is  one  space  where  the  rounds 
are  eight  feet  apart,  and  near  the  top  there  is  a  gap  of 
full  twelve  feet.  I  return,  and  say  to  my  informant,  "  I 
have    discovered    how  the    man   got   to  the  top  of  the 


I04  /S  DAK  WIN  RIGHT? 

pillar."  — ''  Oh  !  "  says  he,  "  I  know  very  well  how  he  got 
there,"  —  "  But  there  is  a  ladder  on  the  other  side  of  that 
pillar,  and  it  is  infinitely  more  likely  that  he  climbed  to 
the  top  by  a  ladder  than  that  he  ascended  in  any  such 
way  as  you  teach." —  "  I  do  not  beheve  in  your  ladders," 
he  replies  :  "  I  tell  you  an  angel  came  down  from  heaven, 
lifted  him  up  by  the  hair  of  the  head,  and  placed  him  on 
the  pillar."  —  "  Did  you  see  the  angel  do  this  ?  "  —  "  No  :  I 
cannot  say  that  I  saw  the  angel  do  it."  —  "  Have  you  seen 
any  one  that  did  see  the  angel  do  it?  "  —  "  No  :  I  cannot 
even  say  that."  —  "  How,  then,  do  you  know  that  an  angel 
did  this?"  —  "There  is  no  other  way  in  which  the  man 
could  get  up,  and  an  angel  must  have  elevated  him."  — 
"Yes,"  I  say,  "but  here  is  a  ladder:  will  you  not  come 
and  look  at  it?"  At  last  he  moves  a  few  steps,  and, 
casting  a  side-glance  at  the  ladder,  as  if  he  were  afraid  of 
it,  says,  "Do  you  call  that  thing  a  ladder?"  —  "Yes,"  I 
reply,  "  I  call  that  a  ladder."  He  answers,  "  Look  at  the 
gaps,  see  the  missing  rounds  :  I  tell  you  no  man  could 
ever  climb  that  pillar  by  any  such  arrangement.  Here  is 
a  space  fifteen  feet  wide,  another  twenty,  and  still  another, 
most  important  of  all,  at  the  very  top,  thirty  feet  wide. 
I  tell  you  an  angel  came  down  from  heaven,  and  elevated 
him  to  the  top  of  the  pillar,  or  he  never  could  have  got 
there."  But  while  he  is  speaking,  I  am  looking,  and  see 
something  sticking  out  of  the  ground  that  attracts  my 
attention.     I  pull,  and  out  comes    one    of  the    missing 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  105 

rounds,  which,  when  applied,  fits  in  one  of  the  vacant 
places  exactly.  I  turn,  to  call  the  attention  of  my 
friend;  but  he  is  striding  off,  and  as  he  goes  I  hear, 
"Missing  links  — great  gaps  — man  — angel,"  till  his 
voice  is  lost  in  the  distance. 

So  stands  the  subject  of  man's  origin.  There  is  man 
on  the  summit  of  the  organic  pillar,  and  extending  from 
the  very  dust  of  the  ground  to  him  is  the  ladder  of  life. 
The  miraculous  origin  of  man  is  the  angel-elevating 
theory,  and  has  scarcely  any  thing  beside  its  age  to  rec- 
ommend it.  Here  in  the  ladder  are  the  rounds  of  pro- 
tozoan, articulate,  fish,  amphibian,  reptile,  bird,  lower 
mammal,  higher  mammal,  man,  and  a  multitude  of 
intermediate  forms.  But  we  hear  of  "  missing  links." 
Certainly,  how  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  A  hundred  years 
ago,  and  we  did  not  know  of  the  existence  of  the  chain, 
nor  dream  that  there  were  any  links  :  now  we  are  find- 
ing new  links  every  year.  Once  the  space  between  the 
reptile  that  crawls,  and  the  bird  that  flies,  was  immense ; 
but  the  discovery  in  the  Jurassic  beds  of  the  pterodactyle, 
a  flying,  bird-like  lizard,  the  archeopteryx,  a  feathered 
animal  with  teeth,  and  a  long,  vertebrated  tail  (Fig.  -^d), 
the  ichthyornis  and  the  hesperornis,  in  the  cretaceous 
beds  of  Kansas,  the  odontopteryx  in  the  London  clay 
(Fig.  37),  birds' with  teeth  that  ally  them  to  the  reptiles, 
has  furnished  us  with  the  links  that  almost  unite  those 
widely  divergent  types ;  and  we  may  yet  find,  extrava- 


io6 


IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


gant   as    it   may   appear,  every   link   of  the   chain   that 
unites  monad  and  man. 


Fig.  36.  —  Archeopteryx  Macroura,  restored.     (After  Owen.) 

Another  objection  that  has  been  urged  is,  that  we  see 
no  such  changes  now.  It  is  presented  in  this  form  :  "  If 
men  were  ever  developed    from  monkeys,  why  are  they 

not  developed  now  ?  " 
And    the    questioner 
seems  to  expect,  that, 
for  the    development 
theory  to  be  true,  by 
watching    an    orang- 
outang for  a  few  hours 
he  might  see  the  bowed  form  become  erect,  the  sloping 
forehead  expand,  the  hair  drop,  and  the  being  hold  out 
his  hand  and  inquire,  "Am  I  not  a  man  and  a  brother?" 


Fig.    37.  —  Skull   of    Odontopteryx    Toliapicus, 
restored.     (After  Owen.) 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MA  AT.  107 

Not  thus  does  development  proceed.  Here  is  a  clock,  the 
minute-pointer  of  which  makes  a  revokition  in  a  thou- 
sand years.  We  look  at  it  at  noon,  and  again  at  night, 
but  observe  no  apparent  change  :  we  see  it  next  day 
and  the  next  week,  but  the  pointer,  to  all  appearance, 
has  never  moved  :  we  should  naturally  believe  that  the 
clock  was  standing;  yet  in  a  thousand  years  it  sweeps 
the  entire  face  of  the  dial,  and  in  a  million  years  a 
thousand  times.  If  all  species  of  animals  gave  birth  to 
new  species  at  the  same  rate,  by  a  process  so  slow  as  to  ^ 
be  imperceptible,  within  the  space  of  a  geologic  period 
every  animal  would  have  produced  thousands  of  new 
species.  A  clock  might  be  constructed  in  which  the 
minute-pointer  would  be  immovable  for  a  thousand  years, 
and  then  make  the  revolution  of  the  dial  in  an  instant. 
Under  such  circumstances,  those  unaware  of  its  peculiar 
mechanism,  and  unable,  while  they  looked,  to  see  a 
movement,  would  have  but  little  faith  in  any  statement 
of  change  that  had  taken  place  in  the  position  of  the 
hands. 

Suppose  we  have  never  seen  a  new  species  come  into 
being,  which  is  not  strictly  correct :  neither  have  we  seen 
a  new  mountain-chain  heaved,  a  new  river-valley  worn 
out,  nor  a  new  geological  formation  laid  down ;  but  by 
careful  examination  we  can  see  the  processes  at  work,  by 
which  all  these  are  being  accomplished.  A  worm,  eating 
into  the  heart  of  an  apple   in  the  autumn,  is  told  by  its 


io8  IS  DAK  WIN  RIGHT? 

neighbor,  when  it  inquires  where  apples  came  from,  that 
they  are  formed  from  blossoms,  and  that  the  blossoms 
are  modified  leaves.  "  Why  don't  we  see  blossoms  turn 
into  fruit,  and  leaves  into  blossoms,  now?"  says  the  worm. 
The  answer  is,  "  Because  it  would  take  a  longer  time  to 
observe  the  process  than  the  life  of  a  worm  would  fur- 
nish ;  "  and  on  the  tree  of  life  the  transformation  from 
one  species  to  another  may  take  a  longer  time  than  the 
life  of  a  man,  or  even  of  a  nation,  furnishes. 

A  strong  objection  against  the  natural  origin  of  man 
is  this :  "  If  man  came  from  the  brute,  then  like  the 
brute  man  will  die."  If  the  brute  becomes  extinct  at 
death,  which  is  by  no  means  certain,  it  would  not  follow 
that  man  would  also  cease  to  exist.  Here  is  a  green 
apple :  we  take  out  its  undeveloped  seeds,  and  plant 
them,  but  they  die,  and  are  resolved  into  dust.  Here  is 
a  ripe  apple  :  we  take  out  the  seeds,  and  bury  them ; 
they  do  not  die ;  sending  rootlets  downward,  and  shoots 
upward,  they  grow  into  perfect  trees.  Between  those 
seeds  that  did  not  grow,  and  these  that  do  grow,  there  is 
an  infinite  difference,  and  yet  what  makes  it?  A  little 
more  sunshine,  a  longer  connection  with  the  tree  and  its 
vitalizing  sap,  and  life  has  obtained  a  hold  on  the  seed 
that  can  bid  defiance  to  the  wet  of  the  autumn,  the  cold 
of  the  winter,  the  wind  of  the  spring,  and  even  make 
helpers  of  these  to  enable  the  seed  to  develop  into  the 
tree.     In  like  manner  I  can  imagine  a  pair  of  anthropo- 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  109 

morphous  apes,  somewhat  superior  to  the  gorilla,  brutes, 
if  you  please,  that  would  cease  to  exist  at  death,  under 
favorable  conditions  giving  birth  to  a  being  superior  to 
themselves,  with  a  more  expanded  front  brain,  born  of 
necessity  a  brute,  but  ripening  into  the  man,  so  that  at 
death  his  spirit  bids  defiance  to  the  elements,  and  enters 
into  the  spirit  realm,  the  first  of  earth's  inhabitants  to 
occupy  the  fair  abode. 

Lasdy,  it  has  been  said  that  those  who  advocate  evolu- 
tion are  desirous  of  driving  God  out  of  the  world,  and  so 
reducing  man  to  the  level  of  the  brutes,  from  which  they 
believe  him  to  have  been  derived.  The  belief  in  a  me- 
chanical or  day-laboring  God  must  die  with  increasing 
intelligence,  and  it  is  worse  than  useless  to  attempt  to 
save  it ;  but  this  is  no  hap-hazard  world,  nor  is  man  a 
mere  come-by-chance.  We  are  not  the  accidental  re- 
sult of  a  million  accidents,  each  fortunately,  yet  accident- 
ally, contributing  to  the  grand  result.  Nor  is  man  a 
grand  ruin,  the  beauty  of  whose  fragments  reveals  the  per- 
fection of  the  original  structure.  No  almighty  architect 
built  after  his  eternal  designs  a  magnificent  palace,  whose 
beauty  made  even  celestial  on-lookers  rejoice,  and  then 
permitted  a  moral  earthquake  to  shatter  it,  so  that  noth- 
ing but  a  divine  re-creation  could  ever  restore  its  pristine 
perfection. 

But  there  is  a  spirit  in  the  universe,  and  what  for  want 
of  a  better  word  we  must  call  an  intelligent  spirit :  without 


no  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

this  it  is  inconceivable  that  we  could  have  had  this  living, 
growing,  intelligence-permeated  planet,  that  adorns  itself 
with  grassy  blade  and  tinted  flower ;  without  this  how 
could  organized  life  have  developed  like  a  tree,  leafed  in 
the  vertebrates,  blossomed  in  the  lower  mammals,  and 
fruited  in  humanity,  which  loses  its  sourness  as  the  ages 
pass,  becoming  more  sweet  and  juicy  as  it  ripens  in  the 
beams  of  a  sun  that  shines  upon  all  and  never  sets? 

If  intelligence  is  necessary  to  build  a  house,  and  to 
construct  a  watch,  how  much  more  to  produce  a  man  ! 
his  eye,  that  drinks  in  light  from  stars  so  distant  that 
the  light  by  which  we  behold  them  left  them  before  the 
Pyramids  were  reared  ;  his  ears  that  catch  the  insect's 
lazy  hum  as  readily  as  the  thunder's  diapason  ;  his  think- 
ing, hoping,  loving  soul,  with  its  deep  yearnings,  its  grand 
questionings,  its  explorations  from  beyond  the  Milky  Way 
to  the  infinitesimal  points  that  float  in  a  drop.  If  it  took 
a  hundred  million  years  to  fashion  man,  is  the  wisdom, 
the  power,  any  less  than  if  he  had  been  shaped  out  of 
mud  in  a  moment?  If  in  man's  production  a  million  mil- 
lion forms  were  brought  into  existence,  each  nearer  to 
him  than  its  predecessor,  is  the  work  any  less  than  if  in 
a  moment  miraculous  fingers  had  moulded  his  wondrous 
frame?  Infinite,  unseen,  intelligent  spirit,  life  of  our  life, 
spirit  of  our  spirit,  to  understand  thee  we  need  to  be 
infinite  as  thou  art.  "  Nearer  to  thee,"  will  be  our  prayer 
as  the  ages  of  the  future  bear  us  on. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  1 1 1 

It  is  true  that  some  evolutionists  have  advanced  very 
fanciful  theories  to  account  for  the  origin  of  life  and  man. 
Darwin's  theory  of  life's  commencement  upon  our  globe 
will  not  bear  very  close  scrutiny.  He  thinks  it  probable 
that  "  all  the  organic  beings  which  have  ever  lived  on  this 
earth  have  descended  from  some  one  primordial  form, 
into  which  life  was  first  breathed  by  the  Creator."  ^  That 
all  living  beings  have  descended  from  one  form  is  the 
only  reasonable  supposition,  if  we  accept  of  undirected 
variation  and  natural  selection  as  the  grand  agents  in  the 
production  of  species.  All  living  beings  have  too  much  in 
common  to  be  the  product  of  originally  different  organic 
forms,  accidentally  operated  upon  by  surrounding  modi- 
fying circumstances.  But  when  we  attempt  to  reahze  the 
actual  performance,  there  is  nothing  in  the  wildest  myths 
that  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  darkest  ages  less 
scientific  or  less  reasonable. 

It  must  have  been  in  the  Laurentian  or  pre-Laurentian 
age  when  it  was  done.  The  earth  is  prepared,  after  ages 
of  conflict  between  fire  and  water,  for  the  advent  of  life. 
Here  is  the  warm,  shallow  ocean  that  laves  the  entire 
globe,  with  only  here  and  there  dark,  hilly  islands  that 
dot  its  surface.  Life  has  no  chance  upon  the  land,  it  is 
too  hot  for  its  sustentation  ;  and  the  ocean  is  its  only  pos- 
sible home.  Mr.  Darwin  does  not  inform  us  whether  he 
believes  the  Creator  made  the  original  progenitor  of  all 

1  Supplement  to  Origin  of  Species. 


112  IS  DAKWnV  RIGHT? 

living  beings,  and  then  breathed  into  it  the  breath  of  hfc, 
or  whether  it  was  produced  spontaneously  without  life, 
and  then  life  was  breathed  into  it.  If  the  former,  then 
we  have  the  Creator  making,  breathing  into,  and  dropping 
into  the  water,  the  lonely  protozoic  Adam,  that  is  to  be 
"  the  father  of  all  living,"  a  microscopic  gelatinous 
globule,  the  single  tenant  of  a  boundless  ocean.  Is  this 
conceivable?  The  creation  of  Adam  out  of  dust  is 
infinitely  more  so.  If  the  Adamic  protozoan  came  into 
existence  spontaneously,  but  destitute  of  life,  we  have  the 
strange  fact  of  life's  product  preceding  life  itself;  for  the 
body  of  even  a  protozoan  must  be  as  much  the  product 
of  life  as  the  body  of  a  whale.  Imagine  a  Creator  breath- 
ing life  into  a  non-living  protozoan,  nothing  miraculous 
done  for  the  world  during  all  the  preceding  ages,  nothing 
miraculous  done  for  it  since.  A  lonely  protozoan,  desti- 
tute of  a  companion  till  it  spontaneously  divides,  starts 
on  its  journey  without  map  or  guide,  all  one  whether  it 
becomes  a  griffin  or  a  god.  He  who  breathed  into  it  the 
breath  of  life,  utterly  indifferent  to  its  fate,  though  he  has 
worked  a  miracle  to  bring  it  into  existence,  sends  it  out 
to  be  operated  upon  by  "  temperature,  food,  moisture," 
and  "  surrounding  circumstances  "  in  general ;  the  result 
of  which  is  mollusk  and  fish,  reptile  and  bird,  mammal, 
and  man,  with  his  forehead  to  the  sky,  and  his  soul  read- 
ing the  book  of  the  universe.  Nothing  more  improbable 
was  ever  dreamed,  nothing  less  reasonable  was  ever  writ- 
ten. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  113 

Follow  this  protozoic  and  protoplasmic  Adam.  He 
becomes  constricted  in  the  middle;  the  constriction 
deepens  and  widens  till  it  divides  the  verdant  ball  in  two, 
and  now  there  is  a  pair,  identical  in  every  respect.  Each 
of  them  becomes  the  parent  of  a  child,  his  very  image, 
for  he  is  his  half.  What  chance  is  there  for  this  self- 
dividing  protozoan  to  take  the  next  organic  step  ?  About 
the  same  chance  that  there  is  by  planting  willow-slips  to 
raise  an  orange-tree.  Leave  out  spiritual  direction  in  the 
development  of  life,  and  the  wisest  man  is  as  helpless  to 
account  for  what  we  behold  as  the  unschooled  child. 

My  opinion  is  that  in  every  atom  of  every  organized 
being  is  a  perfect  spiritual  type,  constantly  seeking  per- 
fect expression  in  material  form.  When  conditions  are 
unfavorable  the  resultant  individuals  are  imperfect,  and 
become  more  imperfect  when  the  conditions  become 
more  unfavorable,  as  the  ancestor  of  the  a^nblyopsis  be- 
came blind  by  a  life  in  the  Mammoth  Cave ;  and  when 
conditions  are  favorable  the  individuals  approach  nearer 
the  perfect  type,  as  the  human  race  becomes  more  per- 
fect with  every  generation,  being  constantly  surrounded 
by  more  perfect  conditions.  A  fragment  of  the  leaf  of  a 
begonia,  with  proper  treatment,  will  make  a  complete 
plant ;  a  newt  renews  its  limbs  when  they  are  cut  off,  and 
a  mince-meat  piece  of  a  hydra  will  grow  into  a  whole 
animal.  This  is  not  so  very  remarkable  if  the  tendency 
to  form  the  individual  resides  in  every  atom ;  but,  unless 


114  fS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

there  is  a  spiritual  type  within  every  portion  of  the  hydra, 
what  directs  the  growth  of  the  fraction,  develops  its  tenta- 
cles, and  endows  the  perfect  animal  with  intelligence  ne- 
cessary to  lasso  its  prey?  We  have  not  yet  seen  perfect 
apples,  pears,  grapes,  corn,  or  wheat ;  the  perfect  horse, 
bos,  sheep,  dog,  and  man  has  yet  to  appear :  but  these 
have  been  advancing  toward  perfection  for  millions  of 
years,  and  will,  I  think,  become  counterparts  of  their 
spiritual  ideals  before  our  planet  cleaves  to  its  centre,  and 
dies.  An  apple  grown  in  a  bottle  can  be  made  into  the 
shape  of  a  cylinder ;  an  oak  can  be  dwarfed  to  a  tree 
twelve  inches  high,  and  yet  bear  acorns  ;  the  forehead  of 
a  child  can  be  pressed  into  the  shape  of  an  inclined  plane, 
and  the  body  of  a  fashionable  lady  can  be  made  to  re- 
semble an  hour-glass.  Yet  in  all  these  cases  the  tendency 
remains  to  produce  the  perfect  form.  Break  the  bottle, 
and  the  apple  commences  to  swell  in  the  middle  and 
assume  the  rotund  shape  of  its  neighbors ;  feed  the 
dwarfed  oak  liberally,  and  give  its  roots  room,  and  it  be- 
gins at  once  to  tower;  take  off  the  corset,  and  the 
waist  of  a  lady  becomes  more  like  that  of  a  woman.  So, 
through  all  the  early  geologic  ages,  the  tendency  to  pro- 
duce our  grains,  fruits,  birds,  beasts,  and  men  existed ; 
but  the  surrounding  conditions  were  unfavorable  for  their 
production,  and  low  and  imperfect  types  were  the  result. 
Early  types  of  life  have  vanished,  because  the  conditions 
that   rendered   them   possible   have   departed,  and   new 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  115 

types  have  come  into  being,  as  improved  conditions  ren- 
dered higher  expressions  of  the  perfect  spiritual  type  pos- 
sible. Were  the  conditions  surrounding  us  absolutely 
perfect,  then  man  would  also  be,  and  ugliness,  misery, 
and  sin  would  be  unknown. 


MAN'S    SPIRITUAL   ORIGIN. 

It  would  seem  at  this  time  that  among  thoroughly 
intelligent  people  there  is  no  room  for  doubt  of  man's 
natural  origin.  But  to  endow  matter  with  the  ability  to 
make  a  living  world  and  a  thinking  man,  is  to  endow  it 
with  all  but  infinite  power  and  absolute  wisdom.  There 
is  evidently  that  in  the  universe  which  the  knife  of  the 
anatomist  cannot  reveal,  which  the  most  delicate  test  of 
the  chemist  cannot  detect,  which  the  human  eye  by  the 
aid  of  the  most  perfect  instrument  can  never  hope  to  see. 
It  accomplishes  with  apparently  the  greatest  ease  what 
the  combined  power  and  intelligence  of  all  humanity 
would  shrink  from  attempting :  even  the  leaf  of  an  oak 
mocks  the  artists  of  a  world.  This  in  the  universe,  whose 
operation  is  everywhere  visible,  but  whose  essence  for- 
ever eludes  us,  is  infinitely  more  potent  than  all  else  ;  as 
much  superior  to  what  our  senses  reveal  as  that  which 
sees  is  to  the  eye  of  a  dead  man,  as  that  which  thinks 
is  to  the   phosphorus  we  apply  to  our  matches.     I  call 


ii6  /s  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

this  the  infinite  spirit,  to  whose  influence,  infinitely  more 
than  all  else,  we  owe  our  existence  upon  this  planet,  the 
laws  of  nature  being  merely  its  methods  of  operation. 


POINTERS    INDICATING    MAN'S    SPIRITUAL 

ORIGIN. 

As  there  are  pointers  that  indicate  the  natural  and 
brute  origin  of  man,  so  there  are  pointers  that  indicate 
man's  spiritual  and  divine  origin.  One  of  the  most  sig- 
nificant of  these  is  the 

MAN-WARD   PROGRESS   OF   OUR   PLANET. 

In  the  development  of  the  earth  there  has  been  a 
progress  toward  humanity  from  the  start,  till  he  appeared 
of  whom  the  mute  prophets  of  all  ages  have  borne 
witness. 

Many  years  ago  I  visited  a  factory  for  making  cloth, 
in  Woonsocket,  R.I.  I  first  went  into  the  sorting-room, 
where  the  raw  material  was  brought,  and  separated  into 
heaps,  of  various  degrees  of  fineness,  for  the  work 
needed  to  be  done.  From  this  to  where  the  wool  was 
washed,  and  laid  in  heaps,  as  pure  as  the  drifted  snow.  I 
followed  it  to  the  dyeing-room,  where  various  colors  were 
given  to  it,  according  to  the  uses  to  which  it  was  to  be 
applied.    I  saw  it  carded,  spun,  woven,  and  finished  ;  and 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN-  OF  MAN.  117 

in  the  ultimate  product,  cloth,  I  saw  that  for  which  the 
various  processes  throughout  had  been  employed.  For 
this  the  nimble  fingers  of  the  sorters,  for  this  the  dye-tubs 
steaming  hot,  the  whirring  wheels,  the  long-drawn  threads, 
and  the  clattering  looms  in  which  they  interlocked. 
Every  movement  of  every  hand  and  eye,  the  step  of  every 
foot,  the  motion  of  every  wheel,  contributed  to  the  result. 
From  the  giant  water-wheel  that  revolved  in  the  darkness 
to  the  flying  bobbin,  from  the  broad  connecting  belt  to 
the  tiniest  thread  that  joined  in  the  mazy  dance  and 
linked  hands  with  its  dancing  neighbors,  one  spirit  ani- 
mated the  whole,  and  the  one  end,  cloth,  was  kept  in 
sight  continually. 

As  geology  enables  me  to  look  at  the  earth,  I  see  it  to 
be  a  great  factory  for  making  men  out  of  granite.  There 
is  quite  a  difference,  however,  between  this  factory  and 
that  at  Woonsocket.  That  was  presided  over  by  an  out- 
side intelligence,  and  power  that  planned  and  kept  it  in 
motion.  When  the  water-wheel  broke,  they  repaired  it ; 
when  a  belt  snapped,  they  joined  it ;  when  a  cog  broke, 
they  replaced  it.  During  every  minute,  everywhere  in 
that  factory,  outside  intelligence  and  power  were  brought 
to  bear,  or  the  making  of  cloth  would  have  instantly 
ceased.  Not  so  with  this  factory :  its  presiding  power 
resides  within.  Imagine  a  factory  that  could  mend  its 
belts,  make  new  wheels,  and,  if  need  be,  new  spinning- 
frames  and  new  looms,  by  its  own  inherent  power,  and 
then  you  imagine  a  factory  that  resembles  our  planet. 


Ii8  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

Sweep  out  of  existence  all  the  men  in  the  world  except 
the  most  brutal  Bushmen  of  Africa,  with  their  protruding 
lower  jaws,  their  retreating  foreheads  and  ape-like  faces, 
and  in  time  from  them  might  spring  physical  symmetry 
and  high  mental  endowment,  Apollos  and  Venuses,  Ho- 
mers and  Shakspeares.  We  beheve  this  because  there 
was  a  time,  when,  where  the  highest  types  of  men  are 
to-day,  men  inferior  to  the  lowest  Australians  existed. 
From  them  have  come  the  best  living  specimens  of  our 
race ;  and  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  by  the 
operation  of  the  same  power  a  similar  result  would  be 
produced. 

The  poet  often  sees  farther  and  deeper  than  the  man 
of  science,  who  frequently  strains  his  physical  eyes  in 
looking,  so  that  his  spiritual  eyes  are  blind.  Walt  Whit- 
man is  right  when  he  says  :  — 

"Afar  down  I  see  the  huge  first  nothing; 
I  know  I  was  even  there. 

I  waited  unseen  and  always,  and  slept  through  the  lethargic  mist, 
And  took  my  time,  and  took  no  hurt  from  the  fetid  carbon. 
Long  I  was  hugged  close,  —  long  and  long. 
Immense  have  been  the  preparations  for  me, 
Faithful  and  friendly  the  arms  that  have  helped  me ; 
Cycles  ferried  my  cradle,  rowing  and  rowing  like  cheerful  boat- 
men. 
For  room  to  me  stars  kept  aside  in  their  own  rings ; 
They  sent  influences  to  look  after  what  was  to  hold  me. 
Before  I  was  born  out  of  my  mother,  generations  guided  me. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  119 

My  embryo  has  never  been  torpid,  nothing  could  overlay  it. 

For  it  the  nebula  cohered  to  an  orb, 

The  long,  slow  strata  were  piled  to  rest  it  on. 

Vast  vegetables  gave  it  sustenance, 

Monstrous  sauroids  transported  it  in  their  mouths,  and  deposited 

it  with  care. 
All  forces  have  been  steadily  employed  to  complete  and  delight 

me; 
Now  I  stand  on  this  spot  with  my  soul." 

Look  down  on  the  hell  our  earth  once  was.  Here  are 
mounting  flames  that  leap  and  sink  and  roll,  as  they  are 
swept  by  hurricane  blasts  over  the  shoreless,  fiery  sea. 
Rivers  of  glowing  metal  are  flowing  over  the  sun-like 
surface,  amber,  blue,  and  red,  so  bright  that  they  dazzle 
our  eyes.  Where  is  the  promise  of  man  in  all  this? 
Little  do  these  fiery  tides  look  like  the  crimson  currents 
that  are  to  flow  through  his  veins ;  or  the  ruddy  banks 
that  bound  them  like  the  flesh  that  shall  enshrine  him  ; 
or  the  scorching  breath  like  the  air  that  shall  pass  peace- 
fully through  his  lips,  and  feed  his  lungs.  Yet  here,  in 
this  fiery  hell,  is  the  spirit  that  shall  develop  the  world 
into  an  earthly  paradise,  and  produce  man,  and  make 
him  its  worthy  lord. 

Rolling  with  those  fiery  waves,  leaping  with  those 
ruddy  flames,  and  flowing  with  that  ardent  breath,  are  all 
the  forests  of  all  ages,  the  birds  that  are  to  sing  in  their 
boughs,  the  insects  that  shall  feed  upon  their  leaves,  the 


120  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

beasts  that  shall  browse  upon  their  branches  or  crop  the 
herbage  beneath  them. 

And  in  this  boundless  furnace,  and  the  smoky  atmos- 
phere that  surrounds  it,  lies  all  of  which  man  is  to  be 
composed.  Here  is  that  which  shall  make  his  bones, 
and  the  flesh  that  shall  clothe  them,  the  blood  that  shall 
permeate  it,  and  the  nerves  that  are  to  bind  it  into  a  sen- 
tient whole  ;  the  eyes  that  shall  drink  in  light  from  distant 
suns,  the  brains  of  the  world's  thinkers,  and  all  that  shall 
evolve  from  them ;  above  all,  the  tendency  that  shall 
cause  matter  to  move  through  countless  aeons  on  the 
broad  highway  to  man ;  and  thus  you  and  I  were 
there.  The  world  was  pregnant  with  man  ;  and  the  geo- 
logic formations  present  to  us,  in  their  fossils,  so  many 
steps  of  the  gestative  process  by  which  he  was  brought 
forth. 

Millions  of  years  pass  away,  and  we  look  again.  How 
changed  !  The  fiery  sea  is  gone,  the  flames  are  dead, 
the  metals  have  sunk  to  their  cavern  homes ;  and  here  is 
rock,  heated  rock,  dull  red  in  places,  bare,  black,  deso- 
late, craggy.  Thousands  of  rimmed  craters  scar  the 
earth's  face  \  and  we  shudder  as  we  look  at  the  lifeless 
wilderness,  that  seems  doomed  to  sterility  forever. 

There  is  little  promise  here  of  man,  yet  the  world  is 
one  step  nearer.  Fire  and  frost  are  the  great  antagonists 
of  life,  and  man's  empire  lies  between  them.  Fire  has 
been  subdued.     In  this  black  crust  we  see  the  operation 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  121 

of  cohesion;  and  within  it  lurks  silex,  that  shall  enter 
into  the  composition  of  his  teeth,  and  lime  and  phos- 
phorus that  shall  help  to  make  his  bones.  The  age  of 
minerals  was  necessary  to  collect  the  materials  to  build 
man's  wonderful  fabric,  as  well  as  lay  the  foundation  on 
which  it  should  stand. 

A  few  million  years  more  pass  away,  and  we  look 
again  through  the  geologic  telescope.  Here  is  water 
boiling  hot,  and  steam  arising  in  dense  clouds ;  lakes 
rolling  about  on  obsidian  plains,  like  drops  of  water  on 
a  hot  stove,  till  they  are  dissipated  into  vapor.  Spouting 
geysers  send  up  immense  columns  of  water  and  steam, 
and  others  intermittingly  discharge  fountains  of  black 
mud.  Yonder  are  islands  rising  and  sinking,  like  bub- 
bles on  the  waves,  obedient  to  the  disturbing  forces 
beneath  them ;  volcanoes  bellow,  and  earthquakes  con- 
stantly shake  the  rising  ground. 

"  But  I  see  nothing  like  man,  nor  even  life,"  says  the 
on-looker :  "  it  is  as  impossible  here  as  in  a  boiling  cal- 
dron." Very  true,  but  you  must  be  patient :  the  gods 
need  time  as  truly  as  the  men.  We  are  a  step  nearer : 
here  is  water,  that  important  element  in  the  construction 
of  his  body.  This  will  help  to  form  the  blood  that  shall 
course  through  his  veins,  and  carry  to  every  part  the 
material  of  which  his  frame  shall  be  built.  Distilled  on 
the  earth,  it  shall  cool  the  heat  of  the  burning  day,  and 
make    those    plants  grow  that  shall  constitute  his  food. 


122  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

These  islands  are  the  starting-points  of  continents,  on 
which  he  sliall  hve,  and  without  them  he  could  not  be. 
Examine  those  rocks,  and  you  will  find  quartz  and  mica, 
felspar  and  hornblende,  and  beautiful  crystals  of  these 
and  other  materials  lining  the  sides  of  crevices.  A 
manifestation  of  life  is  here  !  Only  mineral  life,  it  is 
true,  but  life  that  causes  atoms  to  collect  and  cohere  in 
regular  geometrical  forms.  In  them  we  see  the  symme- 
try that  will  characterize  the  future  man,  and  the  order 
and  beauty  that  will  appear  in  his  fabric. 

Let  us  look  again.  The  Cambrian  age  dawns,  and 
vegetable  and  animal  life  are  here.  What  a  step  is  this  ! 
Here  is  life  that  takes  up  foreign  matter,  and  yet  forms 
an  individual  in  which  destruction  and  construction  will 
go  on  together  to  make  it  perfect.  The  first  story  of 
humanity  is  built :  all  before  this  only  prepared  the 
ground,  and  laid  the  foundation.  Story  after  story  will 
now  be  constructed,  as  the  ages  go,  till  man  at  last  is 
placed,  the  top-stone. 

Peering  into  the  water  of  a  sheltered  bay,  calm  as  a 
baby's  sleep,  we  behold  the  early  embodiments  of  life. 
Here  are  masses  of  jelly  that  cover  in  spots  the  bottom 
of  the  ocean,  formed  of  the  bodies  of  united  proto- 
zoans, that  secrete  lime  and  build  cells,  communicating 
with  each  other,  till  calcareous  reefs  are  formed,  that 
pave  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  Here,  too,  are  fan-like 
forms,  rooted  like  plants,  their  beautiful  branches  out- 
spread, all  covered  with  buds,  and  every  bud  an  animal. 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  1 23 

Changes  take  place  now  with  greater  rapidity.  Life 
has  obtained  foothold,  and  moves  on  with  giant  strides 
to  its  goal,  humanity.  It  is  the  Silurian  time  :  fucoids 
hair-like,  string-like,  ribbon-like,  make  a  dense  mat  on 
the  rough  rocks ;  shells  innumerable  strew  the  sandy 
shore,  and  the  tenants  of  others  are  crawling  over  the  sea- 
bottom.  Let  us  examine  one  of  these.  It  is  a  gaster- 
opodous  mollusk,  —  a  sea-snail.  What  an  advance  is  this 
upon  all  previous  forms  that  we  have  seen  !  Here  is 
what  we  may  call  a  head,  furnished  with  eyes ;  a  mouth, 
for  the  reception  of  food,  and  tiny  teeth.  Within  the 
mouth  is  a  tongue,  and  from  it  a  stomach  and  intestinal 
canal,  that  traverses  the  body  with  varying  convolutions. 
A  heart,  though  with  only  two  cavities,  forces  blood  into 
the  arteries,  which  branch  to  all  parts  of  the  body ;  and  a 
large  liver  assists  the  gills,  by  which  the  blood  is  purified, 
and  fitted  for  the  uses  of  the  body.  There  is  a  nervous 
swelling  in  the  head,  that  we  may  almost  call  a  brain  ; 
nerves  ramifying  through  every  part  of  the  body ;  and  a 
pair  of  auditory  organs,  by  which  it  hears,  perchance, 
the  calls  of  its  snaily  neighbors,  hid  among  the  branches 
of  the  sea-weed  upon  which  it  feeds.  It  is  only  a  snail, 
it  is  true  :  but  how  much  of  man  there  is  even  here  ;  and, 
among  the  innumerable  variations  that  shall  take  place 
among  the  living  beings  that  shall  inhabit  the  earth,  life 
will  never  sink  below  the  step  she  has  now  taken.  Many 
will  branch  to  the  right,  and  others  to  the  left ;  but  the 


124  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

main  trunk  rises  continually,  whose  branches  shall  bear 
man  as  their  fruit. 

With  this  advance  has  been  an  equal  advance  in  all 
that  is  favorable  to  still  higher  beings.  The  air  is  purer ; 
poison  has  been  eliminated  from  it,  condensed,  and 
buried  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea ;  the  water  is  less  pol- 
luted with  foreign  material ;  the  islands  have  been  en- 
larged j  mountains  raise  their  heads  upon  them,  green  to 
their  cloud-capped  summits,  for  vegetable  life  has  seized 
upon   the   land,  and   lowly  plants    adorn   the    universal 

earth. 

What  are  these  that  go  flashing  through  the  waters, 
with  glittering  scales  of  bone  ?  These  are  fishes,  small, 
it  is  true,  but  what  a  step  man-ward  they  indicate  !  Here 
is  man's  backbone ;  for,  though  cartilaginous,  it  performs 
the  same  office,  as  it  occupies  the  same  place,  as  that 
jointed,  bony  structure  in  man.  Within  it  is  the  great 
spinal  nerve ;  and  at  the  head  of  it  the  brain,  lodged  in  a 
bony  box  to  hold  and  protect  it,  whose  parts  have  the 
same  names  as  those  in  the  skull  of  man.  Here  are 
head,  face,  an  eye  on  each  side,  mouth  beneath,  teeth, 
stomach,  liver,  gall,  swim- bladder,  prophesying  of  lungs, 
and  four  fins  with  little  bones  within,  showing  us  where 
man's  finger-bones  shall  eventually  grow.  Why,  it  is  a 
litde,  scaly  water-man,  almost  as  near  to  him  as  a  life  in 
the  water  will  permit.  It  can  propel  itself  by  its  limbs, 
see  and  hear,  hope  and  fear,  love  and  hate ;  and  more 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  125 

than  the  foundation  of  both  man's  physical  and  mental 
nature  was  laid  when  the  first  fishes  appeared. 

Do  not  imagine,  however,  that  the  road  to  man  was  a 
highway  smooth  and  plain,  along  which  life  moved  to 
him  without  a  jolt.  The  development  of  life  was  in 
some  respects  like  the  growth  of  a  tree ;  but  there  were 
fearful  storms,  breaking  off  innumerable  branches,  sweep- 
ing off  leaves  and  blossoms,  but  leaving  a  trunk  that  sent 
out  new  and  stronger  branches,  for  the  urgent  spirit  was 
within,  that  carried  it  on  to  greener  leaves  and  fairer 
blossoms.  There  were  times  when  volcanic  outbursts 
destroyed  living  beings  over  wide  areas,  as  the  prairie 
fires  sweep  off  the  grass ;  but  as  the  prairie  renews  its 
beauty  after  the  fire,  so  the  world  has  renewed  itself  a 
miUion  times. 

Years  pass,  as  drops  down  a  flowing  river,  and  we  are 
in  the  Devonian  age.  Taller  mountains  pierce  the  sky, 
larger  islands  dot  the  sea,  and  broader  rivers  pour  their 
turbid  streams  into  the  ocean.  In  the  swamps  are  slen- 
der plants  with  curly  tops,  tall  reeds  also,  with  long,  flat, 
fleshy  leaves ;  and  calamites,  like  giant  horse-tails,  wave 
their  tapering  tops.  Trees  of  considerable  size  adorn 
the  distant  mountains,  while  tree-ferns  abound  on  the 
lower  grounds.  Flowers  gem  the  ground  and  make  fra- 
grant the  air,  dragon-flies  flit  around  the  rivers,  and  a 
cricket-like  chirp  enlivens  the  hitherto  silent  woods.  We 
sail  over  the  sea^  and  mark  in  its  blue  depths  the  vari- 


126  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

oiisly  colored  and  variously  shaped  polyps,  forming 
branching  trees  and  reefs  that  extend  for  miles,  whose 
honeycomb-like  cells  are  filled  with  the  oil  that  they 
have  secreted  and  stored,  light  and  fuel  for  the  coming 
ages.  Myriads  of  fishes  are  here,  some,  like  the  Ptet- 
ichthys  Milleri,  no  longer  than  a  man's  finger,  and  others 
in  increasing  size  to  the  dinichthys,  or  terrible  fish,  from 
twenty-five  to  thirty  feet  in  length.  This  is  the  age  of 
fishes,  when  the  vertebrate  foundation  was  broadened 
and  deepened,  on  which  the  palace  of  humanity  was  to 
be  reared.  Fishes  were  then  the  kings  of  the  world : 
they  ruled  for  ages  :  and  from  this  royal  family,  along 
many  independent  lines,  life  descended  and  ascended  to 
man. 

Following  the  Devonian  age  came  the  carboniferous, 
the  great  coal-forming  period  in  the  world's  history. 
Now  continental  areas  appear  above  the  contending 
waves,  and  immense  swamps  are  filled  with  luxuriant 
vegetation,  club-mosses,  tree-ferns,  and  calamites  every- 
where. Young  trees,  like  large  cabbages,  are  springing 
out  of  the  spongy  ground,  and  unrolling  their  ferny 
fronds.  What  a  tangled  wilderness  is  this  I  we  push 
and  climb  and  wade  through  its  depths,  trunks  above 
trunks,  trunks  across  trunks,  branches  interlocking,  and 
almost  shutting  out  the  light  of  day.  We  are  now  on 
the  margin  of  a  lake,  and  notice  the  bony-plated  fishes 
that  swarm  in  the  waters ;  we  walk  along  the  beach,  and 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


127 


are  as  startled  as  Robinson  Crusoe  was,  when  he  discov- 
ered the  tracks  of  a  man  on  what  he  had  supposed  was 
a  desolate  island ;  for  here  is  a  five-digited  track,  look- 
ing as  if  stamped  by  some  rude  little  hand.  It  is  the 
track  of  some  animal  whose  fore-feet  are  small  and  four- 
toed,  and  its  hind-feet  much  larger  and  five-toed.  (Fig. 
38.)  Vertebrate  life  has  advanced  from  water  to  land, 
a  grand  stage  nearer  to 
man.  As  we  advance  we 
discover  frog-like  amphib- 
ians, with  enormous  heads, 
and  large  conical  teeth ; 
snake-like  amphibians, 
that  wriggle  through  the 
woods,  and  even  climb  the 
trees  ;  triangular  -  headed 
amphibians,  with  sharp 
teeth,  Hving  principally  in 
the  water,  as  their  exterior 
gills  indicate,  feeding  on 

the  fishes  that  their  great-     Fig.  38.- Slnb  of  Sandstone  with  Amphibi- 

er       intelligence        enables         an  Footprints,  from   the  Coal-Measures 
^  of  Pennsylvania,  X  lo. 

them    to    catch.       Here 

are  animals  entirely  destitute  of  gills,  that  breathe  the 
vital  air  by  lungs  alone.  They  have  emerged  from  the 
watery  grave  in  which  the  highest  forms  of  life  have  been 
buried  for  vast  ages,  and  have  been  at  last  resurrected 


128  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

to  a  new  life.  On  to  manhood  now,  with  a  firm  step, 
march  the  Hving  hosts. 

Thousands  of  years  again  pass,  as  cloud-shadows  over 
the  prairies,  and  it  is  the  age  of  reptiles,  the  heart  of  the 
Jurassic  period.  Great  cycads  overshadow  the  land,  the 
enormous  leaves  of  some  drooping  from  their  lofty 
crowns  to  the  very  ground.  Pines  clothe  loftier  moun- 
tains than  the  world  has  ever  before  seen,  and  ferns  of 
many  species  beautify  the  woods,  that  grow  wherever 
land  exists,  the  earth  around. 

Basking  on  the  rocks  are  scaly  monsters ;  floating  on 
the  surface  of  the  sea  and  diving  in  its  waters  are  saurians 
as  large  as  whales,  whose  combats  redden  the  ocean  with 
their  blood ;  reptiles  on  bat-like  wings  are  in  the  air,  fly- 
ing dragons,  relentless  marauders.  Reptiles  are  now  the 
masters ;  in  their  turn,  kings  of  the  world ;  but  prepara- 
tions are  making  for  their  overthrow.  Do  you  see  that 
pine  which  has  fallen  across  the  mountain-torrent?  upon 
its  trunk  is  a  small  mammal,  no  larger  than  a  squirrel ;  but 
it  marks  the  introduction  of  a  new  race,  that  shall  cause 
all  others  to  sink  into  insignificance.  It  is  a  marsupial, 
and  of  inferior  organization  :  but  its  brain  is  the  largest 
that  has  appeared,  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  the  animal ; 
its  offspring  are  for  a  time  nourished  in  the  womb  and 
cherished  at  the  breast ;  and  life  has  passed  on  another 
stage  nearer  to  man. 

Now  it  is  the  tertiary  age,  the  age  of  mammals.    Enor- 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  139 

mous  elephants  wander  through  forests  that  can  hardly 
be  distinguished  from  those  of  our  warm  temperate  re- 
gions to-day.  Lions  and  tigers  lurk  in  the  thickets,  horse- 
like animals  feed  in  the  natural  meadows,  on  whose 
skirts  great  wolves  are  watching  them.  Tapiroid  animals 
are  bathing  in  the  water,  and  rhinoceroses  are  wallowing, 
like  enormous  hogs,  in  the  pools  by  the  river's  side.  The 
mountains  are  higher  than  we  have  before  seen  them,  and 
snow  for  the  first  time  appears  on  their  tops.  We  can 
distinguish  the  condnents,  as  we  know  them  to-day, 
though  considerable  change  has  taken  place  in  their 
shape.  The  scene  is  so  familiar,  we  look  for  man,  but 
look  in  vain.  Aha  !  here  are  his  long-armed,  hairy  repre- 
sentatives, the  apes,  swinging  from  bough  to  bough,  and 
tree  to  tree,  and  feeding  upon  the  wild  figs  that  grow 
luxuriantly  on  the  trees  that  skirt  the  wood.  Here  are 
man's  eyes  and  nose  and  mouth,  his  teeth  and  stomach, 
his  bony  skeleton,  in  short,  in  every  particular ;  his  heart, 
his  brain,  his  anger  and  love,  his  hate  and  revenge,  his 
hope  and  fear,  his  gluttony  and  selfishness.  The  old  ape 
scolds  and  threatens ;  the  young  apes  chatter,  and  at  his 
approach  they  run.     The  beast  is  playing  man. 

The  beasts,  however,  advanced  in  brain-capacity  during 
the  tertiary  period,  that  we  can  only  consider  millions  of 
years  in  length.  The  early  mammals  of  the  eocene  are 
noted  for  the  smallness  of  their  brains.  Look  at  the 
skull  and  brain-cavity  of  the  dinoceras  (Fig.  39),  a  mam- 


130 


IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


Fig.  39.  —  Dinoceras,  Skull  and  Brain,  X  16. 

(After  Marsh.) 


mal  whose    remains  were  found  in  the  eocene  beds  of 
Wyoming  by  Marsh.     The  brain  had  only  one-eighth  the 

capacity  of  that  of  a 
rhinoceros  of  the 
same  size.  The  earh- 
est  monkeys  had  the 
smallest  and  smooth- 
est brains  of  all  the 
monkeys.  The  oldest 
horses  of  the  tertiary 
are  those  having  the  smallest  brains,  and  brain-power 
increases  with  every  geologic  step  as  we  advance. 

At  last  appears  the  world's  master,  —  he  for  whom  all 
forces  have  labored  for  a  million  ages.  Stunted,  but 
brawny,  hairy,  nearly  erect,  dumb,  naked,  with  enormous 
eyebrows,  bushy  hair  that  hangs  down  in  snaky  locks,  his 
forehead  "villanously  low:"  he  wanders  through  the 
forest,  stick  in  hand,  with  which  he  strikes  the  loose  bark 
of  trees,  and  appropriates  the  fat  white  worms  as  they 
drop  at  his  feet.  Now  he  is  up  a  hundred  feet  high, 
shaking  the  branches  ;  and  his  laugh  is  echoed  from  the 
rocks  a  mile  away,  as  the  fruit  rains  upon  the  ground. 
He  is  down  and  running,  as  fleet  as  a  deer,  to  a  river's 
bank  :  we  miss  him,  it  is  but  for  a  moment ;  we  turn  a 
bend  of  the  stream,  and  here  is  a  cave,  and  men,  women, 
and  children,  to  whom  he  gesticulates  ;  and  out  a  party 
sallies  under  his  leadership,  and  make  their  breakfast  on 


OA',    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  \x\ 


o 


the  fruit  which  he  has  found.  But  fruit  is  not  their  only 
food.  We  see  on  the  floor  of  the  cave  the  bones  of 
bears  and  wild  hogs,  of  elephants  and  horses,  caught  by 
running  them  into  bogs.  Can  it  be  ?  It  is,  a  man's  skull : 
why,  these  are  cannibals  !  Too  true  :  such  was  man 
about  the  close  of  the  tertiary  time.  But  man,  a  canni- 
bal even,  is  far  in  advance  of  all  that  preceded  him  : 
give  him  time,  and,  by  the  aid  of  that  spirit  that  bore 
him,  he  will  outgrow  cannibalism  and  even  war.  Out  of 
such  as  these  have  come  Greece  and  Rome,  Egypt  and 
Judaea,  Moses  and  Jesus,  Shakspeare  and  Goethe,  Par- 
ker and  Garrison,  —  only,  however,  in  consequence  of 
that  continuous  tendency,  which,  infinitely  more  than  all 
else,  has  made  us  what  we  are. 

The  Darwinian  theory  gives  us  no  clew  to  the  cause 
of  this  progress.  Darwin  acknowledges  that  we  are  igno- 
rant of  the  cause  of  variation,^  though  he  subsequently 
refers  to  "surrounding  circumstances"  as  the  cause. 
Huxley  says  that  "  every  variation  depends  in  some  sense 
upon  external  conditions,  seeing  that  every  thing  has  a 
cause  of  its  own  ;  "  -  and  he  refers  to  "  temperature,  food, 
warmth,  and  moisture,"  as  among  these  external  condi- 
tions ;  they  are  the  only  ones  he  mentions,  and  he  evi- 
dently regards  them  as  the  most  important.  Warmth  is 
only  that  state  of  temperature  that  is  a  little  higher  than 
the    heat  of  our  own  bodies ;  consecjuently  we  have  as 

1  Origin  of  Species,  p.  120.  -  Ibid.,  p.  S9 


132  JS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

the  principal  external  conditions  that  produce  variation, 
according  to  Huxley,  temperature,  food,  and  moisture. 
Had  there  been  no  variation,  there  could  have  been  no 
advancement,  there  would  have  been  no  chance  for  the 
operation  of  natural  selection.  We  have  then  presented 
by  Huxley,  as  the  grand  causes  for  the  production  of  fish, 
bird,  mammal,  and  man,  temperature,  moisture,  and  food. 
These,  then,  are  the  gods,  but  how  utterly  impotent  are 
they !  What  is  there  in  warmth,  water,  and  food  to 
advance  a  protozoan  to  a  radiate,  a  worm  to  a  fish,  and 
an  ape  to  a  man  ?  A  frost  in  the  spring-time  stops  the 
growth  of  the  cucumber-plants,  and  the  heat  of  a  hotbed 
with  water  and  food  causes  them  to  grow  in  the  heart  of 
winter ;  but  what  could  these  do  in  the  formation  of  plant 
or  leaf,  if  the  life-bearing  seed  was  not  present  ?  Food 
can  make  a  hog  fat,  with  suitable  temperature  and  a 
proper  proportion  of  water  ;  but  how  long  must  the  farmer 
feed  it  before  it  shall  take  wings,  and  change  its  sty  for 
the  eagle's  eyry?  Changes  as  great  as  that  have  taken 
place  during  the  geologic  epochs ;  and  to  attribute  them 
to  food,  warmth,  and  water,  may  be  considered  philoso- 
phical, but  is  certainly  not  reasonable. 

Add  the  influence  of  natural  selection  to  the  effect 
produced  by  warmth,  food,  and  moisture,  and  how  far  can 
we  then  advance  ?  Natural  selection  preserves  a  varia- 
tion that  is  beneficial  to  the  individual,  because  those 
that  do  not  possess  it,  in  the  struggle  for  life  are  over- 


OK,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  133 

come,  and  die.  If  variation  without  tendency  could  have 
made  a  protozoan  like  a  radiate,  what  advantage  would  it 
have  been?  where  the  radiata  can  live,  so  can  the  proto- 
zoa ;  and  they  thrive  well  at  the  bottom  of  the  deep  seas, 
where  radiates  are  almost  entirely  wanting.  What,  then, 
should  have  produced  the  progressive  step  from  protozoa 
to  radiata?  What  beneht  could  it  have  been  to  a  radiate 
to  become  a  worm,  or  a  worm  to  be  transformed  into  a 
fish?  Life  might  just  as  well  have  continued  in  these 
lower  forms  as  long  as  the  planet  could  produce  them. 
Why,  then,  this  steady,  continuous  advance  through  the 
ages  to  man  ?  Start  an  ant  from  Boston  to  the  Mosque 
of  Omar  in  Jerusalem,  and  the  chances  would  be  greater 
of  its  arriving  there  than  of  life  arriving  at  man,  from  its 
first  organic  start  in  the  Laurentian  or  pre-Laurentian 
time,  without  a  guide. 

THE    RACE    DEVELOPMENT   OF   ANIMALS. 

As  the  individual  development  of  animals  in  the  womb 
of  the  parent  is  an  evidence  of  the  natural  origin  of  spe- 
cies, so  the  race  development  of  animals  in  the  womb  of 
time  is  an  evidence  of  their  spiritual  origin.  Take  the 
horse :  the  earliest  horse-like  animal  known  to  us  is 
called  by  Professor  Marsh  the  eohippus  (the  dawn-horse). 
This  was  certainty  a  million  of  years  before  the  appear- 
ance of  the  true  horse,  and  in  all  probability  two  or 
three  millions.     Professor  Marsh  says,  "  In  the  structure 


134  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

of  the  feet  and  in  the  teeth,  the  eohippus  indicates  un- 
mistakably that  the  direct  ancestral  line  to  the  modern 
horse  has  already  separated  from  the  other  perissodac- 
tyles."  ^  As  early  as  this,  then,  the  ancestors  of  the  horse 
had  separated  from  the  other  odd- toed,  hoofed  quadru- 
peds, and  started  for  the  goal,  —  the  modern  horse  ;  and 
during  all  the  subsequent  ages  they  never  left  the  track, 
though  there  were  many  stragglers  that  turned  to  the 
right  and  left,  and  were  lost. 

The  day  follows  the  dawn  because  the  sun  is  below 
the  horizon  and  is  rising ;  and  the  horse  followed  the 
dawn-horse  because  the  spiritual  ideal  of  the  horse  was 
below  the  geological  horizon,  and  only  time  and  favorable 
conditions  were  needed  for  its  perfect  embodiment. 

As  we  advance  toward  the  present  time,  we  find  the 
orohippiis,  which  is  a  little  larger  than  the  eohippus,  and 
shows  a  greater  resemblance  to  the  modern  horse.  The 
mesohippus,  which  follows,  in  the  lower  miocene,  is  about 
as  large  as  a  sheep,  and,  as  Professor  Marsh  says,  is  "  one 
stage  nearer  the  horse."  In  the  upper  miocene  comes 
?niohippus,  which  "  continues  the  line."  In  the  lower 
pliocene  comes  protohippus,  still  more  like  a  horse  ;  and 
in  the  upper  pliocene  the  pliohippiis  (more  horse),  the 
most  horse-like  of  all  the  equine  ancestry ;  and  following 
this  comes  the  true  horse  :  every  step  is  a  step  horseward. 
The  man  who  saw  an  artist  making  a  statue  could  not  be 

*  Introduction  and  Succession  of  Vertebrate  Life  in  America,  p.  31. 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  135 

more  certain  that  he  was  following  an  ideal,  as  the  block 
became  more  and  more  like  a  man,  than  we  can  be  that 
Nature  was  following  an  ideal,  as  she  brought  into  exist- 
ence these  successively  more  and  more  horse-hke  forms, 
till  the  animal  appeared  as  he  is  known  to  us  to-day. 
What  caused  these  forms  to  approach  nearer  and  nearer 
to  the  horse  in  a  direct  line  for  millions  of  years  ?  To 
answer,  "  struggle  for  life,"  "  survival  of  the  fittest," 
"natural  selection,"  " moisture,  food,  and  warmth,"  and 
ask  us  to  accept  these  as  sufficient  to  account  for  it,  is  to 
make  a  demand  on  our  credulity  such  as  no  defender  of 
dogmatic  theology  ever  surpassed.  There  never  was  a 
keener  struggle  for  life  among  inferior  animals  than  there 
has  been  since  man  appeared  on  the  planet,  —  a  struggle 
so  keen  that  in  it  many  have  gone  down,  and  others  are 
rapidly  approaching  extinction  ;  yet  we  not  only  fail  to 
see  a  new  species  developed  as  a  consequejice  of  this 
struggle,  but  we  do  not  even  see  a  step  taken  in  that 
direction. 

Swine,  camels,  deer,  oxen,  elephants,  and  other  mam- 
mals were  preceded  during  the  tertiary  period  by  many 
species  of  animals  allied  to  them,  and  approaching  nearer 
at  every  step  to  the  animals  at  present  known  by  those 
names.  There  were  numerous  offshoots,  such  as  varia- 
tion, modification,  and  natural  selection  might  produce  ; 
but  these  died  out,  as  the  lower  branches  of  a  tree  so 
frequently    die,    the    main    stem    continuing  toward   the 


136  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

perfect  type.  Undirected  variation,  even  when  aided  by 
natural  selection,  offers  no  sufficient  explanation  of  these 
facts.  As  far  as  we  can  see,  the  orohippus  was  just  as 
well  adapted  to  its  surroundings  as  the  horse,  and  would 
have  subsisted  just  as  well  in  our  meadows  as  the  horse, 
thoudi  it  would  have  been  much  less  serviceable  to  man. 

o 

ORG.^NIC    DISTRIBUTION. 

Another  pointer  which  indicates  man's  spiritual  origin, 
as  well  as  the  spiritual  origin  of  other  organic  beings,  is 
seen  in  the  geographical  and  geological  distribution  of 
plants  and  animals.  By  this  I  mean  the  existence  of 
allied  plants  and  animals  in  such  geographical  and  geo- 
logical positions,  that  it  seems  evident  they  never  could 
have  been  the  descendants  of  the  same  progenitors. 
Darwin  himself  generously  furnishes  us  with  facts  that 
cannot,  I  think,  be  explained  on  the  principle  that  natural 
selection  has  been  the  most  potent  agent  in  the  produc- 
tion of  new  species.  Between  forty  and  fifty  of  the 
flowering  plants  of  Terra  del  Fuego,  "  forming  no  incon- 
siderable part  of  its  scanty  flora,  are  common  to  Europe, 
enormously  remote  as  these  two  points  are  ;  and  there 
are  many  closely  allied  species."  ^  In  addition  to  these 
almost  all  the  lichens,  forty-eight  mosses,  and  many  other 
cryptogamous  plants,  are  identical  with  species  existing  in 
Great  Britain.     But  how  could  these,  fitted  for  a  climate 

'  Origin  of  Species,  p.  326. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  137 

like  that  of  the  southernmost  point  of  South  America, 
migrate  from  Europe,  or  those  of  Europ~e  migrate  from 
Terra  del  Fuego,  a  distance  of  more  than  seven  thousand 
miles,  across  a  broad  ocean  and  the  heated  tropics  ?  At 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  European  species  are  found, 
which  have  not  been  discovered  in  the  intertropical  parts 
of  Africa.  What  is  still  more  remarkable,  the  plants, 
fishes,  and  crabs  of  New  Zealand  resemble  those  of 
Europe.  Twenty-five  species  of  sea-weeds  are  common 
to  New  Zealand  and  to  Europe,  that  are  not  found  in  the 
tropical  seas  that  lie  between  them.^  Several  European 
plants  are  found  on  the  southern  mountains  of  Australia, 
and  some  on  the  lowlands.  Had  the  European  species 
wandered  from  Australia,  or  the  Australian  species  from 
Europe,  or  had  both  wandered  from  some  intermediate 
locahty,  it  does  not  seem  possible  that  they  could  have 
been  subjected  to  such  a  difference  of  temperature,  as 
they  necessarily  must,  for  such  a  long  period  of  time, 
without  specific  change.  Should  our  botanists  wander 
over  the  temperate  regions  of  Venus,  is  it  not  probable 
that  they  would  find  mosses  and  grasses,  see  fish  in  its 
waters,  and  algae  along  the  sea-washed  shores  ?  If  Dar- 
winians, they  would  then  speculate  upon  the  possibility 
of  meteorites  from  the  earth  having  dropped  the  neces- 
sary seeds  upon  the  planet  that  gave  rise  to  the  allied 
forms.     Two  genera   of  salmons  "  from  South  America, 

*  Origin  of  Species,  p.  327. 


138  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

New  Zealand,  and  Australia,  are  analogous  to  European 
salmons."  '  To  account  for  such  facts,  the  glacial  period 
is  supposed  to  have  exerted  a  cooling  influence  over  the 
whole  globe,  so  that  during  its  continuance  plants  may- 
have  been  able  to  migrate  over  what  are  now  intervening 
hot  spaces;  but  the  more  we  know  of  the  glacial  period, 
the  more  restricted  are  we  led  to  regard  the  influence 
of  the  cold  during  the  time,  and  any  refrigeration  of 
the  climate  of  the  tropics  sufficient  to  allow  of  the  migra- 
tion of  north  temperate  plants  across  them  would  have 
been  sufficient  to  destroy  all  tropical  vegetation. 

The  mariner  finds  on  the  rocks  of  the  South  Shetland 
Islands,  lying  to  the  south  of  Cape  Horn,  patches  of 
grass,  mosses,  and  lichens,  closely  resembling  those  that 
he  sees  on  the  rocks  of  Iceland,  as  far  north  of  the  equa- 
tor as  that  is  south.  Are  these  descended  from  the  same 
progenitors  ?  or  are  they  not  independent  developments 
from  spontaneously  generated  microscopic  organisms, 
under  the  influence  of  that  tendency  toward  certain  defi- 
nite forms  which  operates  in  the  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms,  as  all  acknowledge  that  it  does  in  the  mineral 
kingdom  ? 

Great  breadth  of  separation,  either  in  time  or  space, 
is  generally  represented  by  great  organic  differences,  the 
species  of  different  geologic  formations  and  of  different 
continents  being  but  seldom  alike  ;  yet  the  resemblances 

J  Mivart's  Genesis  of  Species,  p.  163, 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  139 

that  are  found  between  the  animals  and  plants  of  the 
various  geologic  periods,  and  on  widely  separated  portions 
of  our  planet,  point  to  some  other  cause  than  community 
of  descent  for  their  explanation. 

In  the  slaty  rocks  at  Braintree  near  Boston,  which  are 
sometimes  called  Cambrian  and  sometimes  primordial, 
for  they  are  older  than  the  Potsdam  sandstone,  we  find 
a  large  trilobite,  Paradoxides  Harlani.  In  Bohemia, 
Austria,  in  beds  of  about  the  same  age,  we  find  also  a 
large  trilobite  very  similar  to  it,  Paradoxides  Bohemiciis. 
The  places  where  they  lived  were  separated  by  many 
thousand  miles,  and  the  progenitors  of  the  two  species 
must  have  been  apart,  we  may  reasonably  suppose,  for 
ages  ;  yet  the  variation  is  exceedingly  slight. 

At  Cincinnati  in  Ohio ;  Richmond,  Ind. ;  Frankfort, 
Ky. ;  Trenton,  N.Y. ;  and  Mineral  Point,  Wis.,  —  we  find 
a  trilobite,  Calymene  sejiaria.  A  quite  similar  trilobite  is 
found  at  Dudley,  England,  and  at  Gothland  in  Sweden. 
They  are  found  at  the  same,  or  about  the  same,  geo- 
logical horizon  in  both  countries  ;  and  although  the  Euro- 
pean one  is  called  by  a  different  name,  Calymene  Blujn- 
e?ibachii,  the  only  difference  is  that  a  portion  of  the  sur- 
face of  the  latter  is  somewhat  rougher  than  that  of  the 
other. 

The  most  common  molluscous  fossils  in  the  Potsdam 
sandstone  of  this  country,  from  Wisconsin  to  New  York, 
are  species  of  the  lingula  and  the  obolus.     In  beds  of 


140  IS  DARWIN-  RIGHT? 

the  same  age  in  England  and  Bohemia,  it  is  equally  true. 
We  find  in  the  United  States  accompanying  them  a  pter- 
opod  of  the  genus  Theca ;  and  we  find  this  to  be  the 
case,  both  in  England  and  Bohemia. 

When  trilobites  were  abundant  in  the  ocean  that  cov- 
ered New  York  and  Ohio,  they  were  equally  abundant  in 
the  seas  whose  billows  rolled  over  Utah,  England,  and 
Europe  generally ;  and  when  they  died  out  in  one  part 
of  the  globe,  they  died  out  nevermore  to  re-appear  in  all 
portions  of  our  planet.  The  European  chain-coral  of 
the  Upper  Silurian  is  identical  with  that  which  character- 
izes the  Niagara  group  in  this  country,  from  the  arctic 
regions  to  the  Southern  States. 

The  resemblance  between  some  of  the  lower  forms  of 
life,  that  are  widely  separated  in  time,  is  not  less  unfavor- 
able to  the  Darwinian  hypothesis.  Let  any  man  look  at 
the  shells  of  the  lingtclce,  that  frequently  overspread  the 
surface  of  Silurian  slabs,  and  then  look  at  the  shells  of 
modem  iingiilce,  and  at  first  sight  he  could  hardly  dis- 
tinguish one  from  the  other.  Yet  they  are  probably 
separated  by  fifty  million  years.  If  the  HngulcB  of  to-day 
are  the  descendants  of  the  Lower  Silurian  lingtdce,  what 
should  have  preserved  them  almost  unchanged  during 
the  multitudinous  mutations  to  which  every  part  of  the 
ocean  must  have  been  subjected? 

Compare  the  sea-snails  of  the  Silurian,  such  as  belong 
to  the  genera  Murchisofiia,  Cyclonema,  and  Pleurotoma- 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN-  OF  MAN.  141 

ria,  with  the  sea-snails  on  our  present  coasts,  and  the 
resemblance  is  so  great,  that  ordinary  observers  call 
them  at  once  by  the  same  names.  The  gasteropods 
in  Fig.  40  do  not  belong  to  the  same  genera,  nor  even 
the  same  families ;  yet  the  resemblance  in  the  shell-cov- 
ering  is   very  great.     Compare   the   ferns    of   the   coal 


Fig.  40. — Ancient  and  Modern  Gasteropods,  natural  size.  i.  Littorina  litorea, 
a  gasteropod  found  on  the  coast  of  New  England;  2.  Cyclonema  bilix,  a  fossil 
gasteropod,  from  the  Cincinnati  group  of  the  Lower  Silurian;  3.  Chlorostoma 
fimbrale,  found  on  the  Pacific  coast.     (Original.) 


measures  with  our  modern  ferns,  and  even  botanists  find 
it  difficult  to  distinguish  some  of  them  from  their  mod- 
ern representatives.  Are  the  snails  of  to-day  the  direct 
descendants  of  the  marine  snails  of  forty  million  years 
ago  ?  Is  it  not  much  more  probable  that  they  are  lower 
branches  of  the  tree  of  life,  millions  of  which  have 
sprouted,  multitudes  died,  but  of  which  there  are  still 
some  survivors? 

If  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  differences  that  have  existed 
and  do  exist  between  organic  beings  are  the  result  of 
minute,  undirected  variations,  each  of  which  was  of  ben- 


142  /S  DA /CIV/ A'  RIGHT? 

efit  to  its  possessor,  what  incessant  variation  must  have 
taken  place  to  produce  the  new  species  that  appear  with 
every  new  geological  group  !  Not  only  must  there  have 
been  the  variations  that  were  useful  to  the  individual, 
and  were  in  consequence  preserved,  but  the  many  thou- 
sand times  greater  number  that  were  not  useful,  and 
therefore,  according  to  the  Darwinian  theory,  could  not 
have  been  preserved ;  in  addition  to  these,  the  varia- 
tions that  were  useful,  and  were  not  perpetuated,  in  con- 
sequence of  that  persistency  of  type  that  characterizes 
all  species  of  organic  beings.  With  such  incessant  vari- 
ation as  this  theory  demands,  how  shall  we  account  for 
the  fact  that  the  fossiliferous  rocks  distributed  over  the 
globe  can  generally  be  distinguished  by  a  geologist  at  a 
glance,  in  consequence  of  the  great  resemblance  be- 
tween the  fossils  contained  in  them?  This  is  not  only 
true  of  the  great  formations,  but  it  is  also  true  of  most 
of  the  groups  of  rocks  into  which  they  are  divided.  All 
over  the  planet,  the  fossils  found  in  the  rocks  bear  a 
close  resemblance  to  those  in  the  same  geological  hori- 
zon. 

The  facts  seem  to  indicate  that  life  has  developed 
from  distinct  organic  beginnings  along  parallel  lines,  as 
rapidly  as  the  improved  conditions  of  the  planet  per- 
mitted. As  the  tadpole  remains  a  tadpole,  unless  there 
is  a  sufficient  light  to  give  the  stimulus  necessary  to  push 
it  on  to  the  frog  stage,  the  tendency  to  which  lies  within 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAiV.  143 

it,  SO  it  appears  that  living  beings,  within  which  lay  the 
tendency  to  advance  to  higher  forms,  have  developed 
from  age  to  age  as  rapidly  as  the  surrounding  conditions 
became  sufficiently  favorable  for  a  forward  step  to  be 
possible.  Better  conditions  have  laid  the  higher  steps 
of  the  organic  ladder,  from  one  geologic  age  to  another, 
enabling  hfe  to  climb  to  the  summit. 

In  the  axolotl  of  Mexico  we  see  an  animal  livinjj  in  a 
certain  form  for  hundreds  of  years,  and  in  all  probability 
for  thousands,  perpetuating  itself  in  the  same  form,  yet, 
under  changed  conditions,  suddenly  transformed  into  an 
animal  so  entirely  different,  that  a  naturalist  knowing 
nothing  about  the  transformation  would  regard  them  not 
only  as  distinct  species,  but  as  belonging  to  different 
genera,  if  not  different  families.      (Fig.  41.) 

The  axoloti  is  a  fish-like  amphibian,  ten  to  fifteen 
inches  long,  of  a  grayish  color,  spotted  with  black.  On 
each  side  of  the  neck  there  are  branching  gills,  by 
means  of  which  it  can  breathe  when  in  the  water ;  while 
at  the  same  time  it  possesses  lungs,  and  by  their  use  can 
live  out  of  the  water.  This  animal  had  long  been  known 
to  naturalists ;  but  their  surprise  was  great  to  learn,  that, 
after  being  carried  to  Paris,  some  of  the  young  had 
become  transformed  into  an  entirely  different  animal. 
It  is  true  we  see  a  similar  transformation  in  the  case  of 
the  frog ;  but  the  tadpole  does  not  breed,  and  we  have 
never  regarded  it  as  other  than  an  immature  stage  of  the 


144 


IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


frog.  It  has  been  found  by  repeated  experiments,  that 
when  the  young  of  the  axolotl  are  removed  from  the 
water  at  a  certain  stage,  and  kept  as  much  as  possible  in 
tlie  air,  they  are  transformed  into  amblystomas,  and  the 
following  are  a  few  of  the  changes  in  structure  which 
result :  — 


Fig.  41. — The  Axolotl  as  it  is  found  in  Mexico.     The  Amblystoma  into  which 

it  is  sometimes  transformed. 


1.  The  gills  disappear,  and  the  clefts  of  the  gills  close 
up. 

2.  The  crest  on  the  back  disappears. 

3.  The  rudder-like  tail  changes  to  a  tail  that  is  nearly 
round,  like  a  salamander's. 

4.  The  ground  color  of  the  skin  is  changed  from  gray- 
ish black  to  a  shining,  greenish-black,  on  which  yellow- 
ish-white patches  are  irregularly  distributed. 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  145 

5.  The  eyes  become  prominent,  and  the  pupils  small; 
and  eyelids  are  formed  which  can  close  the  eye  com- 
pletely, while  in  the  axolotl  the  eye  cannot  be  closed. 

6.  The  toes  diminish  in  size,  and  lose  their  skin-like 
appendages. 

7.  The  palatal  teeth  are  changed  from  a  position  in 
which  they  form  an  arched  band,  to  one  in  which  they 
stand  in  a  diagonal  row. 

8.  In  the  axolotl  there  are  in  the  under  jaw  several 
rows  of  small  teeth,  which  disappear  after  the  metamor- 
phosis. 

9.  The  anterior  face  of  each  vertebra  is  less  concave 
in  the  amblystoma  than  in  the  axolotl.^ 

For  the  long  period  of  time  during  which  the  axolotl 
existed  in  Mexico,  possibly  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
years,  bringing  forth  beings  like  itself,  there  existed 
within  it  the  power,  when  conditions  were  favorable,  to 
make  a  very  decided  advance  to  the  form  of  the  sala- 
mander. Why  may  there  not  have  been  during  the  past 
geologic  ages  a  power  residing  in  various  forms  of 
organic  beings,  to  transform  them  into  nobler  forms 
of  life,  when  conditions  were  such  as  would  allow  the 
transformation  to  take  place  ? 

1  See  Weismann's  article,  On  the  Change  of  the  Mexican  Axolotl  to  an 
Amblystoma,  m  the  Smithsonian  Report  for  1877. 


146  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

PERSISTENCY    OF    TYPE. 

The  persistency  of  type  under  the  great  changes  \.<s 
which  organic  beings  are  and  have  been  subjected  is  a 
pointer  whose  significance  can  hardly  be  over-estimated 
in  this  connection.  If  there  are  spiritual  ideals,  as  I 
think,  which  are  striving  to  embody  themselves,  and 
organic  beings  are  the  result,  it  is  not  surprising  that  it 
should  be  difficult  to  turn  them  aside  ;  and,  even  when 
they  are  turned  aside,  it  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that 
they  readily  revert  to  what  may  be  nearer  the  spiritual 
type  :  but,  if  all  beings  are  the  result  of  undirected  varia- 
tion and  natural  selection,  the  great  stability  of  organic 
forms  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  facts  in  nature.  Man 
is  found  on  all  continents,  and,  from  the  earliest  historical 
times,  has  inhabited  them  and  all  large  islands  :  he  wan- 
ders over  the  burning  sand  of  the  tropics,  and  slides 
over  the  icy  snow  of  the  Frigid  Zone ;  he  flourishes  at 
the  sea-level,  and  fourteen  thousand  feet  above  it ;  he  is 
as  frugivorous  as  the  ape,  as  carnivorous  as  the  lion,  as 
piscivorous  as  the  seal,  and  as  omnivorous  as  the  hog ; 
yet  everywhere,  and  under  all  circumstances,  he  always 
retains  the  type  of  his  race.  We  find  him  black  and 
brown,  yellow  and  white,  tall  and  short,  fat  and  lean, 
bearded  and  beardless,  savage  and  civilized,  but  still 
human.  If  there  was  no  innate  tendency  in  nature  to 
produce  man,  and  if  he  is  not  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  life. 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  147 

beyond  which  it  cannot  go,  why  should  this  be  ?  Why 
not,  during  all  this  time,  some  indications  in  him  of  a 
new  order  of  beings?  If  all  he  possesses  is  merely  the 
product  of  variation  that  was  beneficial  to  the  individual, 
apart  from  tendency  leading  that  variation  in  any  particu- 
lar direction,  why  not  new  organs  appearing  in  man  now, 
or  during  the  past,  say,  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
years?  Why  should  variation  and  natural  selection  cease 
to  operate  now  ?  A  pair  of  eyes  at  the  back  of  the  head 
would  be  very  useful,  especially  to  a  savage ;  for,  while 
transfixing  his  enemy  with  a  spear  in  front,  he  would  be 
able  to  see  what  his  other  enemies  were  doing  behind 
him.  An  individual  thus  endowed,  in  the  struggle  for 
life,  would  be  almost  certain  to  survive,  and  transmit  his 
back-head  optics  to  his  fortunate  descendants.  Another 
pair  of  arms  to  correspond  with  them  would  be  of  im- 
mense service.  He  could  then  wrestle  with  two  men  at 
once,  gather  fruit  before  and  behind,  and  have  a  much 
greater  chance  to  survive.  Why  not,  among  the  infinite 
number  of  variations  that  must  be  produced,  if  Darwinism 
be  true,  buds  behind  the  shoulders  of  some  babies,  in 
the  place  w^here  arms  ought  to  grow  ?  But  we  hear  of 
nothing  of  this  kind,  and  we  see  no  variations  that  would 
lead  us  to  think  that  any  such  thing  could  be  possible. 
Astronomers  scanning  the  heavens  sorely  need  a  tele- 
scopic eye,  that  would  enable  them  to  see  as  only  the 
most  expensive  instruments  now  enable  them.     An  indi- 


148  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

vidual  endowed  with  an  extra  pair  of  eye-lenses  might  be 
able  to  see  Jupiter's  moons  and  Neptune's  sateUites  with 
ease,  without  instrumental  assistance.  Such  a  man  would 
receive  a  larger  salary,  he  could  therefore  afford  to  marry, 
and  this  valuable  peculiarity  would  thus  be  likely  to 
descend  to  his  telescopic  posterity.  But  we  find  no  tele- 
scopic eye-sprouts,  no  telephonic  ear  indications.  The 
tree  never  advances  beyond  its  fruit,  and  I  believe  the 
life-tree  of  our  planet  fruited  when  man  appeared. 

Darwin's  view  of  the  origination  of  new  varieties,  which 
are  to  him  incipient  species,  is  thus  presented  by  him  : 
"  If  organic  beings  in  a  state  of  nature  vary  even  in  a 
slight  degree,  owing  to  changes  in  the  surrounding  condi- 
tions, of  which  we  have  abundant  geological  evidence,  or 
from  any  other  cause ;  if,  in  the  long  course  of  ages,  in- 
heritable variations  ever  arise  in  any  way  advantageous  to 
any  being  under  its  excessively  complex  and  changing 
relations  of  life,  —  and  it  would  be  a  strange  fact  if  bene- 
ficial variations  did  never  arise,  seeing  how  many  have 
arisen,  which  man  has  taken  advantage  of  for  his  own 
profit  or  pleasure,  —  if,  then,  these  contingencies  ever 
occur,  and  I  do  not  see  how  the  probability  of  their 
occurrence  can  be  doubted,  then  the  severe  and  often- 
recurrent  struggle  for  existence  will  determine  that  those 
variations,  however  slight,  which  are  favorable,  shall  be 
preserved  or  selected,  and  those  which  are  unfavorable 
shall  be  destroyed."  ^    He  adds  on  the  next  page,  "Selec- 

^  Animals  and  Plants  under  Domestication,  vol.  i.,  p   16. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  149 

tion  does  nothing  without  variabihty,  and  this  depends  in 
some  manner  on  the  action  of  the  surrounding  circum- 
stances on  the  organism."  There  is,  according  to  this, 
no  internal  direction  whatever ;  and  variation,  under  the 
influence  of  external  circumstances,  blindly  changes  every 
part  of  the  structure  of  every  animal  till  it  produces  an 
improvement  that  natural  selection  can  preserve. 

If  all  the  forms  of  life  now  on  the  planet  have  been 
thus  produced  by  slight  changes  from  pre-existent  forms 
preserved  by  natural  selection,  the  process  by  which  it 
was  accomplished,  we  may  reasonably  suppose,  is  still 
going  on ;  and,  among  the  millions  of  living  beings  that 
now  inhabit  the  globe,  we  ought  to  be  able  to  see  some 
on  the  way  to  new  and  entirely  different  forms,  for  we 
cannot  conceive  that  the  possible  forms  which  variation 
and  natural  selection  can  produce  are  exhausted.  Among 
reptiles,  why  not  the  first  indications,  at  least,  of  a  trans- 
formation of  the  fore-feet  to  wings,  and  the  appearance  of 
feathers?  Why  not  some  indications  of  hands  to  take 
the  place  of  the  hoofed  feet  of  horses  and  cattle  ?  It  is 
true  that  natural  selection  might  in  time  destroy  them, 
for  hands  would  not  be  as  useful  to  horses  as  feet ;  but 
variation,  being  blind,  can  have  no  idea  that  hands  are 
not  useful  to  a  horse.  It  is  natural  selection  that  decides 
whether  the  statues  made  by  the  blmd  sculptor.  Varia- 
tion, shall  stand  in  the  temple  of  life,  or  be  ground  to 
powder ;  and  it  is  only,  according  to  Darwin,  by  variation 


i^o 


7S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


blindly  trying  millions  of  times,  and  eventually  hitting 
something  worthy  of  preservation  by  natural  selection, 
that  hands,  eyes,  ears,  and  all  other  organs  have  been 
produced.  We  should  find  a  proboscis  or  something 
quite  as  remarkable,  for  which  we  have  no  name,  starting 
on  the  heads  or  tails  of  our  canines ;  for  how  can  variation 


Fig.  42.  —  Mastiff  of  the  time  of  Nebuchadnezzar.     Found  in  the  ruins  of  Baby- 
lon.    (After  Layard.) 


know  that  a  dog  does  not  need  a  trunk,  and  how  can  it 
distinguish  the  head  from  the  tail?  Claws  might  begin 
to  appear  on  the  feet  of  the  sheep,  for  how  should  varia- 
tion know  that  they  do  not  care  to  catch  mice  ? 

Dogs  vary  greatly :    from    the   lap-dog   to    the    New- 
foundland is  a  wide  space ;  but  no  one  considers  either 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


151 


to  be  over  the  line  of  our  familiar  canis,  and  the  vari- 
ations of  five  thousand  years  have  failed  to  take  a  single 
dog  beyond  the  boundary.  A  difference  as  great  as  that 
between  a  dog  and  a  wolf,  or  a  fox,  has  not  been  known 
to  be  produced  in  that  time.      (Figs.  42  and  43.) 

J.  P.  Leslie,  in  his  work  entitled  "  Man's  Origin  and 
Destiny,"  in  reference  to  this  s;iys,  "On  the  oldest  mon- 
uments of  the  Pha- 
raohs, the  pictures  of 
different  kinds  of  dogs 
are  recognized  by  any 
child  as  the  pictures  of 
the  dogs  with  which  he 
plays  to-day.  The  pic- 
tures of  the  negro,  the 
Jew,  the  Egyptian,  the 

Scythian,  are  perfect  likenesses  of  the  Nubians,  Fellahs, 
Jews,  and  Turks  of  to-day.  There  you  may  see,  portrayed 
in  colors  six  thousand  years  old,  the  same  slave-traders, 
driving  down  the  same  slave-coffles,  as  in  the  same  val- 
ley of  the  Nile  to-day.  If  all  the  races  of  mankind  are 
variants,  by  the  law  of  variation,  from  the  form  of  Noah 
or  of  Adam,  then  how  infinitely  remote  must  have  been 
the  time  when  Noah  or  Adam  lived  !  " 

With  all  the  wonderful  changes  which  variation  and 
human  selection  have  produced  in  the  pigeon,  going  on, 
as  they  have  been,  for  thousands  of  years,  yet  no  new 


Fig.  43. — The  Egyptian  Gazelle  Dog.  About 
4,000  years  old.  (From  "  The  Types  of 
Mankind.") 


152 


IS  .DAR  WIN  RIGHT ? 


species  of  bird  has  been  formed  :  the  fan-tails,  pouters, 
and  tumblers  are  pigeons  still.  The  oak,  the  beech,  the 
sassafras,  the  willow,  and  the  poplar  grew  in  the  woods 
that  clothed  the  American  continent  in  the  cretaceous 
time,  probably  four  milhon  years  ago.  (Fig.  44.)  Out 
of  one  hundred  and  ten  species  of  trees  found  in  the 
cretaceous   beds    of    Nebraska,    at    least    half   of   them 


Fig.  44.  —  Sassafras  (Araliopsis)  mirabile.     Lesq.     From  the  Cretaceous  Beds  of 

Kansas.      (Original.) 


belong  to  genera  now  living.  The  most  common  leaf 
that  I  found  in  the  miocene  beds  of  Wyoming  was  the 
poplar  {Populiis  decipiens^  Fig.  45),  and  the  poplar  is 
the  common  deciduous  tree  found  in  Wyoming  to-day. 
Some  of  the  same  species  of  trees  now  growing  were 
in  the  old  cretaceous  forests.  Sassafras  officinale,  the 
only  species  now  growing  in  the  United  States,  is  found 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  153 

in  the  cretaceous  beds  of  Dakota.  Our  beech  of  the 
present  time,  Fagus  polyclada,  is  found  in  beds  of  the 
same  age. 

The  herring  is  one  of  the  most  common  fishes  now 
found  in  the  ocean,  and  a  herring  {cliipea  humilis)  is 
the  most  common  fossil  fish  found  in  the  eocene  shales 
of  Wyoming  at  this  time.  So  like  the  living  herring  is 
it,  that,  when  my  son  Sherman  saw  it  for  the  first  time, 


Fig.  45.  —  Populus  decipiens.     Miocene  Beds,  Wyoming.     (Original.) 

he  said,  "Why,  that  is  a  herring."  (Fig.  46.)  With 
variation  operating  without  a  guide,  and  making  a 
million  changes  where  only  one  could  be  preserved, 
there  should  be  no  such  fixity  of  type  as  this ;  and  its 
existence  is  one  of  the  best  evidences  that  unguided 
variation  and  natural  selection  have  done  comparatively 
little  toward  the  production  of  the  Hving  beings  which 
inhabit  our  planet. 


154 


IS  DARlVIiV  RIGHT? 


There  is  evidently  a  spiritual  influence  that  permeates, 
and  a  spiritual  intelligence  that  presides  over,  every 
organic  being,  and  rules  its  destiny.  In  the  tree  they  lay 
the  pipes  for  the  nourishing  sap,  artistically  mould  the 
leaf,  paint  the  blossom,  and  place  a  honey-drop  at  its 
base  to  tempt  the  insect  whose  offices  are  needed  at  its 
marriage  ;  and  they  allow  it  no  rest  till  the  ripened  fruit 
is  formed.     So  has  it  been  with  the  life-tree  that   bore 


Fig.  46.  —  Clupea  humilis.     Eocene  Shale.     Wyoming.     (Original.) 

man.  Why  did  he  not  remain  the  low-browed,  ape- 
faced,  naked,  hairy,  raw-flesh-devouring  savage  that  -he 
was  when  he  roamed  through  the  woods  of  Great  Brit- 
ain and  France,  before  Niagara  commenced  to  cut  its 
way  back  from  Queenstown?  His  hairy  covering,  as 
Wallace  suggests,  was  a  better  protection  from  the 
weather  than  the  naked  backs  of  his  descendants  ;  his 
thick  skull  was  just  adapted  for  the  warfare  that  he  was, 
and  is  still,  compelled  in  many  parts    of  the  \vorld   to 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  155 

wage  with  the  wild  beasts  around  him;  his  capacious 
chest,  and  strong-boned,  muscular  frame  well  fitted  him 
for  a  Hfe  in  a  world  where  the  price  of  existence  is  a 
ceaseless  struggle  against  opposing  forces. 

Why  did  the  face  of  the  primitive  savage  become 
smooth?  What  narrowed  the  nostril,  thinned  the  lip, 
diminished  the  space  from  the  mouth  to  the  nose,  ad- 
vanced the  eye  from  its  cavernous  retreat,  and  short- 
ened the  arms?  Why  did  his  front  brain  enlarge,  and 
his  back  brain  diminish  ?  Why  did  greater  beauty  mark 
his  face  and  frame,  till  the  dumb,  dirty,  ignorant  savage 
was  transformed  into  the  well-formed  and  philosophic 
man?  Whence  came  his  moral  sense,  that  led  him  at 
last  to  sacrifice  his  own  interest  to  increase  the  happiness 
of  his  fellows?  Whence  came  that  belief  in  future 
existence,  that  led  him  to  lay  by  the  side  of  the  corpse 
the  weapons  of  the  chase  that  he  supposed  the  spirit 
might  need  in  another  condition  of  being?  Undirected 
variation,  natural  selection,  and  even  sexual  selection 
added,  are  utterly  inadequate  to  account  for  these  things. 

MULTIPLICrrV    OF   HUMAN    ORIGINS. 

The  Darwinian,  in  accounting  for  man,  must  not  only 
account  for  the  Caucasian,  but  also  for  the  Ethiopian,  the 
Mongolian,  the  Malaysian,  the  American,  and  other  races 
of  human  beings,  some  of  which  are  only  represented 
to-day  by  outlying  fragments,     We  only  need  to  look  at 


156 


IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


Fig.  47,  the  Hottentot  Venus,  who  died  but  a  few  years 

ago,  and  whose  model  is  now  in  the 
Garden  of  Plants  in  Paris,  to  see 
what  an  amazing  difference  at  the 
present  time  exists  between  some  of 
the  races  of  mankind.  The  hump 
possessed  by  this  female  was  no  un- 
natural deformity  :  many  years  ago 
I  saw  a  female  Hottentot  that  re- 
sembled her  in  this  respect,  and  in 
Southern  Africa  they  are  not  uncom- 
mon. Nor  do  racial  differences  de- 
crease as  we  go  backward  in  time. 
Fig.  48  represents  the  Chinese  his- 
torian, Sse-ma-thsian,  who  was  born 
B.C.  145. 

The    Chinaman    was    no    less 

Chinese  then  than  now.     Fig. 

49  is  the  portrait  of  Khoung- 

fou-tseu  (Confucius),  who  was 

born    551    B.C.       He    differs 

considerably  from  the  preced- 
ing ;  but  how  distinct  his  face 

is  from  that  of  any  Caucasian, 

Egyptian,      and      negro!       The    Fig.  48.  -  Chinese    Historian,    Sse- 

red  Egyptians,  three  thousand       "^^-^^^i^"-    ('^f^^""  Pauthier.) 
five  hundred  years  ago,  were  busy  as  bees  in  the  valley 


Fig.  47. — Hottentot  Venus. 


OR,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAxV. 


157 


of  the  Nile ;  splitting  out  blocks  in  the  quarries,  hewing 
them  into  column  and  statue,  dragging  them  to  their  ap- 
pointed places,  and  building  palaces  for  their  kings,  and 
temples  for  their  gods.  They  were  honeycombing  the 
rocky  hills,  and  rearing  stony  mountains,  —  in  the  shape 
of  pyramids,  —  to  make  homes  for  their  mummied  dead  ; 

their  scholars  were  study- 
ing the  peoples  that  sur- 
rounded them,  and  their 
artists  were  busy  repre- 
senting them.     The  fol- 
1  owing  representations 
(Figs.   50  to   53)   were 
found    in    the    tomb  of 
Seti-Menephtha    I.,     at 
Thebes,  painted  red,  yel- 
low, black,  and    white.^ 
The     first     figure,     red, 
represents  the  Egyptian, 
slightly  modified  in   the 
Fellah  of  modern  Egypt. 
The  next,  yellow,  represents  the  yellow  people  with  which 
the  Egyptians  were   acquainted  ;  the  best  knowm  to  them 
would    be    the    Arabians    and    Chaldeans,    more    highly 
colored  at  that  time  than  the  present  Arabs  and  dwellers 
in  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates.     The  next  figure  is  as 

1  Types  of  Mankind,  p.  85. 


-^ 


Fig.  49.  —  Confucius,  the  Chinese  Sage. 
(After  Pauthier.) 


153 


IS  DAKIV/N  RIGHT? 


black  and  as  distinctively  negroid  as  the  last  is  white  and 
distinctively  Caucasian.  Figure  54  is  an  Egyptian  repre- 
sentation of  a  negress,  made  nearly  three  thousand  three 
hundred  years  ago  ;  and  in  the  "  Types  of  Mankind," 
from  which  I  take  it,  we  have  the  following  description 


Figs.  50,  51.  —  Ancient  Eg^'ptian  representation  of  the  races  of  mankind,  about 
3,400  years  ago.  The  left-hand  figure  is  red,  representing  the  Egyptian.  The 
right-hand  figure  is  yellow,  representing  the  Shemites  or  Chaldeans.  (After 
Champollion.) 

of  a  negress,  by  Virgil,  written  early  in  the  second  cen- 
tury :  "  In  the  mean  while  he  calls  Cybele.  She  was  his 
only  (house)  keeper ;  African  by  race,  her  whole  face 
attesting  her  father-land  ;  with  crisped  hair,  swelling  lip, 
and  blackish  complexion  ;  broad  in  chest,  with  pendent 
dugs  (and)  very  contracted  paunch  ;  her  spindle  shanks 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


159 


(contrasted  with  her)  enormous  feet;  and  her  cracked 
lieels  were  stiffened  by  perpetual  clefts."  Fig.  54  is  from 
the  grand  temple  of  Thebes,  and  of  the  time  of  one  of 
the  Rameses  of  the  twentieth  dynasty.  The  differences 
at  present  existing  between  the  various  races  of  mankind 
were  apparently  just  as  great  three  thousand  five  hundred 
years  ago  as  they  are  to-day ;  and,  if  we  come  no  nearer 


Figs.  52,  53. — Ancient  Egyptian  representation  of  the  races  of  mankind,  about 
3,400  years  ago.  The  left-hand  figure  is  black,  representing  the  negro.  The 
right-hand  figure  is  white,  representing  the  Caucasian.     (After  Champollion.) 


to  unity  in  three  thousand  live  hundred  years,  how  much 
farther  shall  we  travel  back  before  we  discover  the  one 
black,  yellow,  brown,  or  white  source  from  which  all  our 
present  races  flowed? 


i6o 


IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


The  Egyptians  were  acquainted  with  negroes,  as  we 
find  from  their  documents,  nearly  four  thousand  three 
hundred  years  ago.^  RawHnson  acknowledges  that  Baby- 
lonian monuments  alojie  carry  back  the  origin  of  BabyJon 
to  3,905  years  before  the  present  time.^  All  historians 
agree  that  the  earliest  civilization  of 
Babylonia  was  a  Turanian  one  :  hence 
the  difference  between  the  people  living 
there  at  that  time  and  the  Egyptians 
must  have  been  greater  than  that  between 
the  modern  Chaldean  and  the  modern 
Egyptian.  That  the  Caucasian  race  ex- 
isted as  early  as  this,  no  scholar  will  dis- 
pute ;  and  we  are  now  back  five  hundred 
years  farther  into  the  past,  with  Egyptian, 
Ethiopian,  Turanian,  and  Caucasian  as 
distinct,  to  say  the  least,  as  they  are  to- 
day.    Egyptologists    have   demonstrated 

Egyptian   repre-   ^^^^  ^^^^  dwcllcr  in  the  Nilotic  valley  was 
sentation  of  a  ne-   j^g  much  au  Egyptian  five  thousand  years 

ago  as  he  was  at  the  commencement  of 
the  Christian  era,  while  the  oldest  Chaldean  monuments 
represent  a  people  in  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates  as  dif- 
ferent from  them  as  they  were  in  the  days  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar. 

Lieut.  Smith,  the  ethnologist,  gives  us  his  opinion  on 

1  Types  of  Mankind,  p.  181,  2  Origin  of  Nations,  p.  41. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


i6i 


the  subject  of  the  fixity  of  races  in  the  following  words  : 
"  It  may,  then,  be  fairly  said,  that  unmixed  races,  from 
the  most  remote  historical  time  (nearly  four  thousand 
years),  have  preserved  their  distinguishing  marks  amid  all 
the  supposed  causes  of  change,  and  may  be  considered 
permanent.  The  Ethiopian  (negro)  can  no  more 
change  his  skin  than  can  the  leopard  his  spots."  ^ 


O 

Fig.  55.  —  Ancient  Negro. 

Geology  enables  us  to  travel  much  farther  into  the  past 
than  history.  Back  to  that  strange  time  known  as  the 
glacial  period,  or  ice  age,  we  go ;  and  in  caves  covered 
with  a  deposit  of  mud,  laid  down  when  three-fourths  of 
Europe  was  under  water,  and  icebergs  sailed  over  the 
places  now  occupied  by  some  of  the  most  intelligent 
people  of  the  planet,  we  find  the  remains  of  man.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  this  was  many  thousand  years  back 

*  Natural  History  of  the  Human  Species,  p.  87. 


l62 


IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 


of  the  historical  period,  and  it  becomes  a  very  interesting 
question :  Do  these  remains  indicate  that  human  beings 
were  more  closely  aUied  to  each  other  then  than  now  ? 
Are  there  any  indications  that  we  are  arriving  at  the  one 
trunk,  from  which  all  the  branches  of  humanity  grew? 
On  the  contrary,  we  have  no  living  people  on  the  globe, 
whose  heads  manifest  as  great  diversity  as  the  skulls  of 


Fig.  56.  —  The  Neanderthal  Skull.     The  upper  is  a  side  view;  the  lower, 

a  front  view. 


these  most  ancient  human  beings  show.  The  Neanderthal 
skeleton,  found  under  a  bed  of  loam  in  a  cave  sixty  feet 
above  the  River  Dussel,  in  the  Neanderthal,  when  first 
exhibited  at  Bonn  in  1857,  impressed  all  naturalists  that 
saw  it  with  its  brute-like  characteristics.  Professor  Schaff- 
hausen  declared  that  it  was  the  most  brute-like  of  all 
known  human  skulls.     When  Professor  Huxley  saw  a  cast 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MA  A. 


163 


of  the  skull,  he  said  it  was  the  most  ape-like  skull  he  had 
ever  beheld.^  Lye'll  says  the  outline  of  the  Neanderthal 
skull  shows  a  nearer  resemblance  "to  that  of  a  chimpan- 
zee than  had  ever  been  observed  before  in  any  human 
cranium."  (Fig.  56.)  Skulls  resembling  it  have  been 
found  in  Cochrane's  Cave,  Gibraltar  ;  at  Borreby,  in  Den- 
mark, and  in  the  Rhine  loess;  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  these  skulls  present  to  us  the  brain  develop- 


FiG.  57.  —  The  Engis  Skull. 


ment  of  an  extremely  brutal  race  that  occupied  Europe 
ages  before  history  or  even  tradition  was  born. 

We  have,  however,  other  skulls,  belonging  apparently 
to  a  period  as  ancient  as  this,  which,  although  not  equal 
to  the  average  skulls  of  the  best  living  races,  would  not 
be  out  of  place  even  on  the  shoulders  of  Europeans 
to-day.     The  Engis  skull  (Fig.  57),  found  in  a  cave  near 

^  Lyell's  Antiquity  of  Man,  p.  79. 


l64  IS  DAKVVJN  RIGHT  1 

Liege  in  Belgium,  with  the  remains  of  many  extinct 
animals,  and  generally  regarded  as  ancient  as  the  Nean- 
derthal man,  is  so  superior  in  its  characteristics,  that 
Professor  Huxley  says  it  is  "  a  fair,  average  human  skull, 
which  might  have  belonged  to  a  philosopher,  or  might 
have  contained  the  thoughtless  brains  of  a  savage,"  — 
from  which  we  may  learn  that  the  Engis  skull  does  not 
much  depart  from  the  average  type  of  living  skulls,  and 
we  may  also  learn  that  Professor  Huxley  is  not  a  phre- 
nologist ;  for  the  same  kind  of  a  skull  never  held  the 
brains  of  a  philosopher  and  the  thoughtless  brains  of  a 
savage.  The  Mentone,  Cro-magnon,  and  other  ancient 
skulls,  are  of  fair  development,  and  show  the  existence 
in  Europe,  at  a  very  early  period,  of  a  race  at  least  equal 
in  mental  endowment  to  that  of  the  best  savage  races 
now  upon  the  globe. 

The  following  is  from  Professor  Paul  Broca,  in  an  arti- 
cle on  the  remains  of  man  found  in  the  caves  of  Peri- 
gord,  with  the  remains  of  the  mammoth  and  other 
extinct  animals :  "  The  quaternary  race  of  Dordogne 
(Cro-magnon)  differs  from  the  quaternary  race  of  the 
Belgian  caves  (Fig.  58)  as  much  at  least  as  dissimilar 
modern  races  differ  one  from  another.  The  contrast  is 
complete,  not  only  when  we  look  at  the  conformation 
and  volume  of  the  head,  but  also  if  we  look  at  the  form 
and   dimensions   of  the  bones  of  the  hmbs."  ^     But  if 

^  American  Journal  of  Science,  July,  1869. 


0R\    THE   ORIGIN-  OF  MAN.  i6 


3 


races  of  men  at  that  early  time  existed,  who  were  as  far 
or  even  farther  apart  than  any  hving  races,  how  much 
farther  back  shall  we  go  before  these  differences  shall 
vanish? 

Buchner  says,  "It  is  true  that  some  very  ancient 
human  skeletons,  or  parts  of  skeletons,  have  been  found, 
which    must   have  belonged  to  comparatively  large  and 


Fig.  58. — The  Furfooz  Skull,  found  in  a  Belgian  Bone  Cave  by  Dupont. 

very  muscular  men,  such,  for  example,  as  the  skeleton 
of  the  famous  Neanderthal  man,  and  the  human  bones 
recently  found  by  M.  Louis  Lartet  in  one  of  the  caverns 
of  Perigord  (Les  Eyzies),  and  probably  belonging  to 
the  period  of  the  mammoth,  which  seem  to  indicate  a 
rude,  but  strong  and  muscular  race  of  men,  with  an 
approximation  in  the  structure  of  the  bones  to  the  type 
of  the  apes,  and  with  prognathous  jaws,  but  nevertheless 
with  a  comparatively  good    development   of  the    brain. 


1 66  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

On  the  other  hand,  most  of  the  discoveries  of  the  so- 
called  quaternary  period  indicate  a  small  race,  with  a 
narrow  skull  and  prognathous  jaws,  and  therefore  of 
a  type  resembling  that  of  the  negroes  or  Mongols.  In 
the  most  ancient  period  of  the  mammoth  and  cave-bear, 
the  men,  according  to  Broca,  were  not  of  large  stature, 
had  a  narrow  head,  with  a  retreating  forehead  and 
oblique  jaws,  in  fact,  a  general  conformation  of  the 
body  such  as  is  now  approximately  met  with  in  the  low^ 
est  races  of  Austraha  and  New  Caledonia."  ^  When  we 
find  the  racial  lines  diverging  for  certainly  more  than 
ten  thousand  years,  how  can  we  believe  that  at  any  time 
still  farther  back  they  will  ever  unite  ? 

When  we  come  over  to  our  own  continent,  we  find 
the  Calaveras  skull,  associated  with  extinct  animals,  and 
belonging  to  the  pliocene  period,  the  oldest  of  all  known 
human  skulls,  pronounced  by  Professor  Whitney  to  have 
a  strong  resemblance  to  the  present  Digger  Indians  of 
California.  Castelnau  found  in  the  caves  of  the  Andes, 
associated  with  extinct  animals,  skulls  resembling  those 
of  the  ancient  Peruvian  type,  but  in  which  the  charac- 
teristics of  that  type  were  greatly  exaggerated.  So  that 
the  New  World  unites  with  the  Old  in  declaring,  that,  as 
we  go  backward  in  time,  there  are  no  evidences  that  the 
races  ever  came  from  a  single  pair,  but  must  have  arisen 
from  many  widely  differing  individuals.     But,  if  humanity 

*  Man,  Past,  Present,  and  Future,  p.  50. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  167 

Started  from  different  sources,  the  originals  must  have 
been  ape-Uke  brutes.  And  what  should  have  caused  the 
differences  between  them?  The  differences  existing  in 
still  more  remote  ancestors,  is  the  most  reasonable 
answer.  Without  tracing  their  pedigree  still  farther  into 
the  past,  we  may  ask,  what  caused  these  diversified  apes 
to  advance  along  independent  lines  to  humanity?  Did 
unguided  variation  operate  simultaneously  on  each  spe- 
cies of  ape  from  which  mankind  has  descended?  and 
was  it  equally  successful  in  all  of  them  in  enlarging  the 
brain,  expanding  the  forehead,  lengthening  the  lower 
limbs,  shortening  the  upper,  causing  the  jaws  to  retreat, 
the  hair  to  disappear  from  the  body,  and  the  stooping 
brute  generally  to  advance  to  the  upright  man?  I  think 
the  most  pronounced  Darwinian  would  shrink  from 
acknowledging  this.  But,  if  not,  we  seem  driven  to  the 
conclusion  that  along  independent  lines,  by  virtue  of 
inherent  force,  and,  as  I  believe,  spiritual  direction,  life 
advanced  till  it  was  represented  by  various  simian  types, 
which  fathered  the  different  races  of  men  now  living 
upon  our  globe. 

LANGUAGE. 

Our  ability  to  communicate  ideas  by  language  is,  to  my 
mind,  an  indication  of  man's  spiritual  origin.  The  first 
being  who  said  bamba  could  not  by  the  utterance  have 
increased  his  chances  of  survival   over  his  semi-simian 


1 68  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

comrades.  How,  then,  came  language,  that  wonderfully 
complex  instrument  for  the  transmission  of  thought, 
which  we  find  to  be  the  property  of  even  every  savage  ? 

The  existence  of  one  language  would  be  difficult 
enough  to  account  for,  on  the  ground  of  mere  variation, 
natural  selection,  and  sexual  selection ;  but  the  difficulty 
is  very  greatly  increased,  when  we  find  that  there  are 
many  distinct  languages,  and  that,  the  farther  we  are  able 
to  trace  them  back,  the  more  distinct  they  appear  to  be, 
indicating  that  languages  sprang  up  independently  among 
various  people  by  virtue  of  inherent  tendency. 

Most  of  the  tongues  of  modern  Europe  bear  a  strong 
resemblance  to  each  other  ;  but,  as  Miiller  says,  "  By  com- 
paring Greek,  Latin,  Gothic,  Celtic,  and  Slavonic,  we 
discover  that  they  were  originally  derived  from  some  lan- 
guage older  still,  of  which  they  were  the  dialects.  This 
language  has  been  called  Aryan  ;  and  it  can  be  proved 
that  the  people  who  spoke  it,  so  long  before  all  written 
history,  led  the  life  of  agricultural  nomads."  The  Sans- 
crit, the  ancient  language  of  India,  which  was  spoken 
for  centuries  before  the  time  of  Solomon,  is  but  a  dialect 
of  the  same  ancient  Aryan  language,  which  was  spoken 
on  the  plateaus  of  Central  Asia  when  Europe  was  in  the 
stone  age.  Indo-European  is  the  name  given  to  the 
family  of  languages  derived  from  the  Aryan,  from  the  fact 
that  they  are  spoken  generally  throughout  Europe  and  in 
India. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  169 

A  very  different  family  of  languages  is  found  in  Syria, 
Arabia,  and  generally  in  the  south-western  corner  of  Asia 
from  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  to  the  Mediterranean, 
called  the  Semitic,  from  the  notion  that  the  descendants 
of  Shem  spoke  these  languages  ;  a  better  name  by  which 
it  is  sometimes  called  is  Syro- Arabian.  The  Aramaic, 
Chaldean,  Hebrew,  Arabic,  and  Ethiopic  languages  are 
members  of  this  family.  This  is  no  mushroom  family. 
George  Smith,  who  translated  the  Chaldean  inscriptions  in 
arrow-headed  characters,  found  in  the  mounds  of  Assyria, 
says,  "  The  Izdubar  legends,  containing  the  story  of  the 
flood,  were  probably  written  in  the  south  of  the  country 
and  as  early  as  2000  B.  C.  These  legends  were,  how- 
ever, traditions  before  they  were  committed  to  writing, 
and  were  common  in  some  form  to  all  the  country." 
As  long  ago  as  four  thousand  years,  the  multitudes  in  the 
valleys  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris  were  speaking  a 
Syro-Arabian  language,  and  their  scholars  were  inscribing 
it  on  clay  tablets  to  transmit  to  the  future  their  thoughts 
and  the  story  of  their  deeds.  We  can  readily  compare 
these  ancient  records  with  the  equally  ancient  Sanscrit 
records,  written  in  an  Indo-European  language ;  and,  if 
these  two  families  of  languages  are  branches  of  the  same 
linguistic  trunk,  we  ought  to  find  them  approaching 
nearer  to  it  in  four  thousand  years :  but  there  is  no 
evidence  of  this  kind.  Greek,  German,  and  Sanscrit, 
which  branched  off  from  the  original  Aryan  many  thou- 


lyo  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

sand  years  ago,  still  show  clearly  their  relationship ;  and 
certainly,  if  the  Indo-European  and  Syro- Arabian  lan- 
guages came  from  the  same  original  source,  we  ought  to 
find  some  evidence  of  this  in  the  similarity  of  their  words 
or  in  their  grammatical  structure.  But  we  do  not  find 
such  evidence.  Professor  W.  D.  Whitney  says,  "The 
whole  fabric  and  style  of  these  two  families  of  language 
is  so  discordant,  that  any  theory  which  assumes  their  joint 
development  out  of  the  radical  stage,  the  common  growth 
of  their  grammatical  systems,  is  wholly  excluded.  .  .  . 
Against  so  deep  and  pervading  a  discordance,  the  surface 
analogies  hitherto  brought  to  light  have  no  convincing 
weight."  ^  If  the  Syro- Arabian  languages  ever  came 
from  the  same  trunk  as  the  Indo-European  languages, 
it  must  have  been  before  the  grammar  of  these  languages 
was  formed ;  and  the  grammar  of  a  language  is  its  soul. 

Alfred  Maury  says  all  the  Syro- Arabian  languages  "  dis- 
tinguish themselves  sharply  from  the  Indo-European  lan- 
guages. They  possess  neither  the  same  grammatical 
system,  nor  the  same  verbal  roots." 

Sayce  is  of  the  same  opinion  :  he  says,  "  The  class  of 
languages  nearest  akin  in  appearance  to  the  Aryan  is  the 
Semitic ;  and  here,  if  anywhere,  upon  the  received  the- 
ory "  (that  is,  of  all  languages  being  derived  from  one) 
"  we  should  expect  to  find  the  most  convincing  proofs  of 
relationship.     On  the  contrary,  every  thing  is   against  it. 

^  Language  and  the  Study  of  Language,  p.  307. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  171 

The  structure  of  the  language,  the  phonology  of  the 
speech,  the  conception  of  the  grammar,  the  character  of 
the  lexicon,  alike  forbid  the  supposition."  ^ 

Older  than  both  of  these,  in  its  written  form  at  least,  is 
the  Nilotic  family,  chief  member  of  which  is  the  Egyp- 
tian language,  related  to  tongues  that  were  once  spoken  in 
the  North  of  Africa,  in  fact,  from  the  Nile  to  the  Canary 
Islands,  and  perhaps  over  a  wnde  region  now  under  the 
Atlantic  Ocean.  We  have  documents  written  in  this  lan- 
guage that  are,  in  all  probability,  five  thousand  years  old. 
The  Syro- Arabian  and  Nilotic  languages  being  geographi- 
cal neighbors  for  many  thousands  of  years,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising to  learn  that  there  are  some  resemblances  between 
some  of  their  words ;  but  there  is  little  doubt  that  the 
Egyptian  language  was  a  spontaneously  formed,  original 
tongue,  much  more  distinct  from  the  Arabic,  Hebrew, 
and  Sanscrit  four  thousand  years  ago,  than  it  was  in  the 
time  of  Cambyses.  "  Egypt  has  been  literally,  for  many 
thousands  of  years,  the  football  of  foreign  conquerors ; 
and  her  primordial  language  became  infiltrated  from  age 
to  age  with  Arabic,  Persian,  Greek,  Libyan,  Latin,  and 
words  of  other  tongues,  known  to  us  only  at  a  later  stage 
of  development ;  but  when  these  exotic  injecta  are  ab- 
stracted, there  remains,  nevertheless,  a  stone-recorded 
vernacular,  possessing  all  the  marks  of  originality,  and  in 
itself  totally  distinct  from  the  utmost  circumference  of 
Asiatic    languages."-      Even    Rawlinson    tells    us    that 

»  Principles  of  Comparative  Philology,  p.  102.        2  Types  of  Mankind,  p.  234. 


172  IS  DAR WIN  RIGHT? 

"  although  in  some  respects  it  presents  resemblances  to 
the  class  of  tongues  known  as  Semitic,  yet  in  its  main 
characteristics  it  stands  separate  and  apart,  being  simpler 
and  ruder  than  any  knowm  form  of  Semite  speech,  and 
having  analogies  which  connect  it  on  the  one  hand  with 
Chinese,  and  on  the  other  with  the  dialects  of  Central 
Africa."  ^ 

The  Bask  language,  spoken  by  about  three-quarters  of 
a  million  people,  who  dwell  among  the  Pyrenees,  in  the 
North  of  Spain,  is  like  a  lone  island  in  the  midst  of  a 
boundless  ocean.  There  is  no  language  with  which  we 
are  acquainted  that  stands  so  much  alone.  Slight  analo- 
gies have  been  traced  between  it  and  the  language  spoken 
by  the  Finns,  and  in  some  respects  it  resembles  the 
American  tongues ;  but  it  is  totally  distinct  from  the 
Aryan,  Semitic,  and  Egyptian  tongues,  and  as  far  as  we 
can  judge  has  always  been.  It  is  probably  the  only  living 
representative  of  a  family  of  tongues  spoken  throughout 
Europe  before  the  Aryan  conquerors  seized  the  country, 
and  drove  the  darker-skinned  and  inferior  inhabitants  into 
the  mountains  and  most  inhospitable  regions. 

We  have  found,  then,  four  totally  distinct  languages, 
as  far  as  we  can  judge,  independently  developed.  But 
the  Chinese  language  is  certainly  distinct  from  all  four. 
"  A  distinguished  historian  and  philologist,  in  comparing 
the  languages  of  the  extreme  East  with  those  of  the  Aryan 

'  Origin  of  Nations,  p.  198. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 


173 


group,  says  that  '  if  the  planets  whose  physical  constitu- 
tion resembles  that  of  the  earth  are  inhabited  by  organized 
beings  hke  ourselves,  we  may  assert  that  the  history  and 
languages  of  those  planets  do  not  differ  more  from  ours, 
than  do  the  history  and  language  of  the  Chinese.' "  ^ 
Alfred  Maury  is  right  when  he  says,  "  The  style  of  Gene- 
sis no  more  resembles  that  of  the  Chinese  Kmgs,  than 
the  language  of  the  Rig-veda  approaches  that  which  the 
hieroglyphics  have  preserved  for  us."  ^ 

There  are  at  least  from  eight  to  ten  root-languages  on 
our  planet,  that  we  have  the  best  of  reason  to  believe 
have  come  into  existence  as  naturally  as  poems  have 
been  made  in  all  those  languages.  Poetry  never  came 
by  natural  selection,  nor  do  I  believe  it  ever  came  by 
sexual  selection,  which  would  be  much  more  probable. 
•  It  never  came  in  various  countries  by  being  imitated 
from  some  one  in  which  it  had  been  miraculously 
planted.  The  ideal  thinker  blossoms  in  poetry  spontane- 
ously, and  hence  the  poems  of  all  languages  differ  as  the 
languages  in  which  they  are  written  differ. 

There  are,  of  course,  resemblances  between  all  the 
languages  of  the  globe,  some  of  the  phonic  elements 
entering  into  the  composition  of  all ;  but  this  no  more 
indicates  their  original  unity  than  the  resemblances  we 
find  in  the  voices  of  the  birds  indicate  that  they  learned 

1  Buchner's  Man,  Past,  Present,  and  Future. 
*  Indigenous  Races  of  the  Earth,  p.  28. 


174  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

their  songs  from  some  original  feathered  singer.  As 
Agassiz  justly  observes,  "There  is  no  ornithologist  who 
ever  watched  the  natural  habits  of  birds  and  their  notes, 
who  has  not  been  surprised  at  the  similarity  of  intonation 
of  the  notes  of  closely  allied  species,  and  the  greater  dif- 
ference between  the  notes  of  birds  belonging  to  different 
genera  and  families.  The  cry  of  the  birds  of  prey  are 
alike  unpleasant  and  rough  in  all ;  the  song  of  all  the 
thrushes  is  equally  sweet  and  harmonious,  and  modulated 
upon  similar  rhythms,  and  combined  in  similar  melodies ; 
the  chit  of  all  titmice  is  loquacious  and  hard;  the 
quack  of  the  duck  is  alike  nasal  in  all.  But  who  ever 
thought  that  the  robin  learned  his  melody  from  the 
mocking-bird,  or  the  mocking-bird  from  any  other  spe- 
cies of  thrush?  Who  ever  fancied  that  the  field-crow 
learned  his  cawing  from  the  raven  or  jackdaw?  Cer- 
tainly no  one  at  all  acquainted  with  the  natural  history 
of  birds.  And  why  should  it  be  different  with  men? 
Why  should  not  the  different  races  of  men  have  origi- 
nally spoken  distinct  languages,  as  they  do  at  present, 
differing  in  the  same  proportions  as  their  organs  of 
speech  are  variously  modified?  and  why  should  not 
these  modifications  in  their  turn  be  indicative  of  primi- 
tive differences  among  them?"^ 

If  languages  did  come  into  existence  thus  spontane- 
ously and  independently,  it  must  have  been  by  virtue  of 

*  Types  of  Mankind,  p.  28a. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  175 

an  innate  tendency  in  human  beings  leading  to  their 
production.  A  chirping  organ  has  been  detected  in  the 
insects  of  the  Devonian,  say  thirty  milhon  years  ago ;  yet 
among  all  the  variations  that  might  have  taken  place 
during  that  immense  period,  and  that  must  have  taken 
place  for  Darwinism  to  be  true,  not  a  step  beyond  simple 
stridulation  has  yet  been  made.  Our  crickets  chirp  as 
the  Devonian  insects  did  before  the  coal  of  Pennsylva- 
nia was  laid  down.  The  quadrumana  have  existed  since 
the  eocene  tertiary,  but  the  monkeys  are  as  destitute  of 
language  now  as  they  were  three  million  years  ago.  In 
the  case  of  man,  what  should  have  caused  at  least  eight 
or  ten  dumb  animals,  and  their  descendants  since  the 
miocene  period,  independently  to  form  languages  for 
the  expression  of  thought,  all  well  adapted  to  the  pur- 
pose, though  differing  widely  from  each  other?  Why 
should  all  the  races  of  men  develop  languages,  and  all 
other  beings  fail?  There  is  nothing  in  the  history  of 
languages  that  would  indicate  that  they  were  formed  by 
the  operation  of  variation  and  natural  selection  ;  while 
many  facts  point  to  the  action  of  an  innate  tendency  in 
humanity,  forming  languages  as  tendency  and  spiritual 
direction  had  previously  formed  the  men  that  needed 
them  for  their  further  development. 


176  /S  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

TENDENCY   TO    BEAUTY. 

The  tendency  to  beauty  throughout  nature  also  points 
to  a  spiritual  cause  underlying  the  operations  of  the 
universe.  The  face  of  a  Hottentot  may  be  symmetrical, 
but  we  cannot  call  it  beautiful;  so  that,  in  addition  to 
symmetry,  there  is  an  added  glory  which  nature's  works 
frequently  possess,  that  must  be  accounted  for.  It  seems 
probable,  that,  if  all  surrounding  conditions  were  at  all 
times  favorable,  all  things  would  be  beautiful.  Winter 
showers  upon  us  beautiful  crystals  of  snow,  because  the 
condition  of  the  aqueous  vapor  and  the  temperature  of 
the  atmosphere  are  such  as  to  allow  the  tendency  toward 
the  beautiful  to  operate.  Quartz  in  shapeless  masses 
possesses  few  of  the  elements  of  beauty ;  but,  when  crys- 
taUized  from  solutions  in  which  the  silicious  particles  are 
free  to  move  as  beauty  directs,  they  form  crystals  whose 
beauty  attracts  even  the  most  uncultivated  eye.  The 
mineral  kingdom,  for  beauty  of  color  and  form,  is  not 
surpassed  even  by  the  vegetable  kingdom  ;  and  yet  selec- 
tion, in  the  Darwinian  sense,  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
production  of  that  color  and  form.  When  looking  at 
the  productions  of  the  mineral  kingdom,  we  may  apos- 
trophize beauty  in  the  language  of  the  poet  Thomson  :  — 

"  At  thee  the  ruby  lights  its  deepening  glow, 
And  with  a  waving  radiance  inward  flames ; 


OJ^,    THE    ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  i  7  7 

From  thee  the  sapphire,  solid  ether,  takes 
Its  hue  cerulean ;  and,  of  evening  tinct, 
The  purple-streaming  amethyst  is  thine. 
With  thy  own  smile  the  yellow  topaz  burns; 
Nor  deeper  verdure  dyes  the  robe  of  spring, 
When  first  she  gives  it  to  the  southern  gale, 
Than  the  green  emerald  shows." 

Deep  in  the  briny  ooze  the  euplectella  forms  her  spun 
glass  basket.  There  is  no  variety  in  its  color,  but  for 
beauty  of  form  it  is  not  surpassed  by  the  production  of 
any  organized  being  that  is  known  to  us.  Why  should 
the  natural  tendency  to  symmetry  and  beauty  be  consid- 
ered sufficient  for  the  production  of  this,  and  natural 
selection  and  sexual  selection  be  called  in  to  account  for 
the  plumage  of  the  birds  of  paradise?  The  shells  that 
are  the  habitation  of  the  deep-sea  mollusks  vie  in  beauty 
of  color  with  the  plumage  of  tropical  birds  :  yet  selection 
could  never  have  wielded  the  brush  that  laid  on  their 
lovely  dyes.  The  soul  of  beauty,  that  spans  the  sky  with 
rainbow  arches,  that  adorns  with  crystals  the  geode's 
"  hollow  globe,"  that  makes  the  marble  halls  of  caverns, 
where  darkness  and  solitude  forever  reign,  more  beautiful 
than  kingly  palaces,  —  this,  in  my  opinion,  infinitely 
more  than  sexual  selection,  made  the  humming  bird  a 
flying  jewel,  adorned  the  birds  of  paradise  with  their 
waving  plumes  and  exquisite  colors,  moulded  the  human 
form,  and  will,  in  time,  make  every  human  being  fair  as 


178  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

our  dream  of  an  angel,  and  worthy  of  the  title,  a  child 
of  God. 

HtnVIAN   FACULTIES. 

Another  pointer  is  the  €xiste?ice  of  the  essentially  hu- 
man faculties  in  man.  Phrenology  as  taught  by  Dr. 
J.  R.  Buchanan  is  as  much  a  true  science  as  geology 
taught  by  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  and  can  be  much  more 
readily  demonstrated.  This  science  reveals  in  man  the 
existence  of  reverence,  modesty,  benevolence,  chastity, 
integrity  or  conscientiousness,  spirituality,  and  other 
essentially  human  faculties,  which  it  is  inconceivable  to 
believe  could  ever  have  been  produced  by  the  operation 
of  undirected  variation  and  natural  selection.  How 
much  more  likely  would  an  ape  be  to  survive,  who  was 
modest,  reverential,  conscientious,  and  benevolent?  In 
the  relentless  struggle  for  life  among  brutes,  their  exist- 
ence would  but  have  rendered  him  a  prey  to  the  less 
scrupulous  and  the  more  vicious,  and  any  variation  in 
that  direction  would  have  produced  a  similar  effect  in  pro- 
pordon  to  the  amount  of  that  variation.  Conscientious- 
ness in  such  an  animal  w^ould  have  led  him  to  abstain 
from  the  food  which  another  had  secured  ;  benevolence, 
to  aid  another  at  the  expense  of  his  own  well-being ; 
while  reverence  and  spirituality  would  have  tended  to 
destroy  that  selfishness,  without  which,  among  brutes, 
death  would  be  inevitable. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  i  79 

Vvhat,  then,  could  have  produced  the  incipient  varia- 
tions which  led  to  the  formation  of  these  dominant  fac- 
ulties in  man,  which  have  led  him,  not  unfrequently,  to 
the  dungeon  with  joy,  and  to  the  burning  pile  with  tri- 
umph? If  we  could  even  conceive  of  the  germs  of 
these  faculties  appearing  in  the  brutes  that  fathered  the 
man,  or  in  primitive  man  himself,  what  could  have 
caused  them  to  increase,  as  they  must  have  done  to 
attain  their  present  development,  when  their  exercise  at 
that  time  must  have  made  the  individual  a  prey  to  his 
more  brutal  neighbors? 

The  existence  of  these  faculties  in  man  points  to  a  spir- 
itual type,  —  the  perfect  man,  toward  which  the  human 
race  has  been  moving  from  its  start,  and  that  is  destined 
eventually  to  be  perfectly  embodied  in  man,  when  the 
fruit  of  the  tree  of  life  is  fully  ripe. 

SPIRITUAL    FACULTIES. 

Another  pointer,  and  perhaps  the  most  significant  of 
all,  is  the  existence  of  spiritual  faculties  in  man,  for 
which  mere  variation,  inheritance,  and  natural  selection 
can  never  account.  If  the  physical  eye  could  be  ac- 
counted for  by  natural  selection,  there  would  still  remain 
the  much  more  difficult  task,  that  of  accounting  for  the 
existence  of  the  spiritual  eye.  It  is  absolutely  certain 
that  a  great  many  persons  —  I  have  known  as  many  as 
thirty  or  forty  —  can  at  times  see  objects  with  the  eyes 


i8o  ZS-  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

closed,  as  well  or  better  than  they  can  with  them  open, 
can  see  in  the  absolute  darkness  as  readily  as  in  the  light, 
and  thousands  of  miles  off  as  well  as  near  at  hand. 
Deleuze,  the  well-known  French  magnetizer  and  author, 
says,  "  In  somnambulists  there  are  developed  faculties  of 
which  we  are  deprived  in  the  ordinary  state  ;  such  as  see- 
ing without  the  aid  of  the  eyes,  hearing  without  the  aid 
of  the  ears,  seeing  at  a  distance,  reading  the  thoughts."  ^ 
Henry  George  Atkinson,  joint  author  with  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau  of  the  Atkinson  and  Martineau  Letters,  writes  : 
"  I  had  once  a  very  remarkable  patient,  a  somnambule, 
who,  with  the  eyes  closed,  could  easily  read  any  writing  I 
gave  her.  She  read  from  the  top  of  her  head,  or  when 
placed  on  her  hand,  or,  in  fact,  from  any  part  of  her  body ; 
and  it  was  to  be  noticed  in  this  case,  that,  the  more  tightly 
you  pressed  upon  her  eyes,  the  more  clearly  she  could 
see."  ^  Professor  Weinholt  in  describing  somnambulism 
says,  the  sleep-walker  "  reads  printed  and  written  papers, 
writes  as  well  and  correctly  as  in  his  waking  state,  and 
performs  many  other  operations  requiring  light  and  the 
natural  use  of  eyes.  All  these  actions,  however,  are  per- 
formed by  the  somnambulist  in  complete  darkness,  and 
with  his  eyes  firmly  closed."  ^  Dr.  Gregory,  professor  of 
chemistry   in  the  University   of  Edinburgh,  says,  "The 

^  Instruction  in  Animal  Magnetism,  p.  185. 

2  Atkinson  and  Martineau  Letters,  p.  104. 

3  Mesmerism  in  India,  Esdaile,  p.  248. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN,  iSi 

clairvoyant  can  often  perceive  objects  wliich  are  wrapped 
up  in  paper,  or  enclosed  in  boxes  or  otlier  opaque  recep- 
tacles. Thus  I  have  seen  objects  described,  as  to  form, 
color,  surface  markings,  down  to  minute  flaws  and 
chipped  edges,  when  enclosed  in  paper,  cotton,  paste- 
board boxes,  wooden  boxes,  boxes  of  papier-mache,  and 
of  metal.  I  have  further  known  letters  minutely  described, 
the  address,  postmarks,  seal,  and  even  the  contents,  read 
off  when  the  letters  were  enclosed  in  thick  envelopes  or 
boxes."  ^  "Vision,"  says  M.  Teste,  "through  the  closed 
eyelids,  and  through  opaque  bodies,  is  not  only  a  real 
fact,  but  a  \Qxy  fj-equent  fact.  There  is  no  magnetizer 
who  has  not  observed  it  twenty  times ;  and  I  know  at 
the  present  day,  in  Paris  alone,  a  very  great  number  of 
somnambulists  who  might  furnish  proofs  of  it."  ^ 

In  the  report  of  a  committee  of  physicians,  appointed 
by  the  Royal  Academy  of  Medicine  in  Paris,  I  find  the 
following :  "  We  have  seen  two  somnambulists  distin- 
guish with  closed  eyes  the  objects  placed  before  them  ; 
they  have  designated,  without  touching  them,  the  color 
and  name  of  cards ;  they  have  read  words  written,  or 
lines  from  a  book.  This  phenomenon  has  occurred  even 
when  the  eyelids  were  kept  closed  by  the  fingers." 

The  distinguished  Parisian  professor  of  medicine,  Ros- 
tan,  in  the  "  Dictionnaire  de  Medecine  "  remarks,  "  There 

1  Animal  Magnetism,  p.  37. 

2  Quoted  by  Bush  in  Mesmer  and  Swedenborg,  p.  107. 


1 82  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

are  few  facts  better  demonstrated  than  clairvoyance  ; "  and 
he  then  tells  us  how  he  tested  the  clairvoyance  of  a 
somnambule  by  going  into  the  dark,  and  turning  the 
hands  of  his  watch  round,  when  the  somnambulist  in  the 
dark  accurately  stated  the  hour  and  minute  indicated  by 
the  pointers.    This  she  did  repeatedly  without  a  mistake.' 

The  men  who  give  their  testimony  in  favor  of  clair- 
voyance are  as  well  able  to  know  the  truth  of  what  they 
state,  and  are  as  worthy  of  credence,  as  the  material 
scientists  who  receive  their  testimony  with  an  incredulous 
smile  ;  and  the  faculty  in  man  by  which  it  is  accomplished 
can  never  be  accounted  for  by  unguided  variation,  in- 
heritance, and  natural  selection.  The  persons  who  have 
possessed  these  faculties  have  been  in  nearly  all  ages  the 
persecuted  and  despised ;  many  have  been  placed  in  luna- 
tic-asylums because  they  were  regarded  as  insane,  and 
not  unfrequently  been  burnt  for  wizards  and  witches. 
Clairvoyance  is  the  appearance  in  a  few  of  what  will 
probably  be  the  heritage  of  all,  by  virtue  of  that  indwell- 
ing spirit  which  carries  the  human  race  to  its  goal. 

The  existence  of  the  spirit  of  man  after  death  is  now 
scientifically  demonstrated,-  but  no  man  will  claim  that 
natural  selection  is  the  cause  of  that  existence.  What  is 
it,  then,  that  perpetuates  man's  existence  after  death  seizes 

1  Dr.  Edwin  Lee's  Animal  Magnetism,  p.  104. 

*  See  the  Scientific  Basis  of  Spiritualism,  by  Epes  Sargent ;  and  Zbllner's  Tran- 
scendental Physics. 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  183 

the  body,  so  that  our  friends  can  return  and  give  us  as 
demonstrative  evidence  of  their  existence  as  they  did 
while  Hving  among  us  ?  It  is  evident  that  there  must  have 
been  something  infinitely  more  potent  at  work  than  Dar- 
winians have  yet  presented,  to  bring  into  existence  man, 
the  spirit. 

Much  of  the  improvement  of  humanity  in  beauty  has 
been  attributed  to  sexual  selection.  A  man  selects  the 
most  beautiful  woman  for  a  conjugal  companion,  a  woman 
selects  the  most  perfect  man  :  some  of  their  offspring 
advance  in  beauty,  and,  the  more  beautiful,  the  more 
likely  they  are  to  become  parents.  Suppose  it  true,  — 
though  it  could  have  had  but  little  influence  in  the  in- 
fancy of  the  race,  when  rape  was  almost  universal,  when 
every  woman  was  a  mother,  and  every  man  a  father,  — 
whence  came  that  appreciation  of  beauty,  which  led  the 
man  to  choose  the  most  beautiful  woman,  the  woman  the 
most  perfect  man  ?  For  the  man  to  choose  a  more  beau- 
tiful woman  than  he  had  previously  seen,  —  and  without 
this  the  race  could  not  advance  in  beauty  without  tend- 
ency leading  in  that  direction,  —  he  must  have  had  an 
ideal  of  beauty  more  perfect  than  he  had  ever  seen  em- 
bodied ;  and  this,  variation  and  natural  selection  do  not 
account  for.  This  is,  in  fact,  as  difficult  to  account  for, 
to  say  the  least,  as  the  beauty  itself.  There  is  a  sense  of 
the  beautiful  in  all  of  us,  as  there  was  in  our  savage  fore- 
fathers, more  perfect  than  any  embodiment  of  it  that  the 


1 84  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

world  has  seen.  Many  an  artist  can  paint  a  more  perfect 
face  than  nature  has  yet  been  able  to  produce  on  this 
planet.  Whence  comes  that  sense  of  a  beauty  more  per- 
fect than  eye  has  ever  beheld?  The  most  moral  man 
has  a  sense  of  moral  perfection  much  in  advance  of  that 
which  he  lives,  or  that  he  has  ever  seen  expressed  in 
the  Hfe  of  any  one.  Priests  and  poets  preach  and  sing 
better  than  they  live.  Whence  comes  this  sense  of  a  life 
superior  to  all  that  we  have  known  ?  Are  not  our  souls 
portions  of  the  universal  soul,  as  every  drop  in  the  ocean 
is  a  part  of  the  mass  the  moon  heaves?  The  grand 
secret  of  the  ages,  hidden  from  all  lower  beings,  is  re- 
vealed to  man ;  and  we  can  see  the  goal  toward  which 
life  has  been  running  for  so  long,  and  to  which  it  must 
arrive,  —  the  perfect  man. 

We,  too,  are  worlds,  more  wonderful  than  the  ponder- 
ous globes  that  swim  in  the  solar  sea.  Some  are  in  the 
heated  stage ;  the  boiling  passions  have  not  subsided, 
and  the  heart  is  a  fiery  hell.  Others  are  in  the  granitic 
stage,  hard,  flinty,  dry,  and  selfish.  Some  have  advanced 
to  life  and  beauty ;  but  all  are  imperfect.  If  the  infinite 
spirit  gave  to  the  planet  all  those  ages  of  the  past  to 
develop  man,  will  there  not  be  given  him  time  to  develop 
to  perfect  angelhood  ?  If  out  of  the  fiery  lava  man  has 
been  developed,  can  we  imagine  any  thing  too  great  or 
too  good  for  even  the  lowest  and  meanest  man  to 
become  ?     The  man  of  the  mammoth  period  was  superior 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  185 

to  the  savage  of  the  cave-bear  epoch ;  the  lake-dwellers 
of  Switzerland  were  highly  civilized  compared  with  the 
occupants  of  the  Dordogne  caves,  and  the  ancient  Greeks 
and  Romans  were  many  strides  in  advance  of  them. 
There  is  no  need  for  despondency,  still  less  for  despair. 
The  stars  are  unmoved  when  the  earthquake  rocks  a 
continent ;  and  they  shine  undimmed,  though  clouds  for 
weeks  obscure  the  sky.  The  canker-worms  sweep  from 
our  apple-trees  every  leaf;  and  there  they  stand,  each  an 
image  of  desolation,  amid  the  verdure  and  bloom  of 
early  summer.  An  ignorant  spectator  might  say,  'Your 
apple-trees  are  dead."  A  few  weeks,  however,  find  them 
green  as  ever :  they  instantly  commence  to  repair  dam- 
ages, and,  in  the  steady  purpose  to  produce  fruit,  never 
falter  for  an  instant.  So  Nature,  never  to  be  balked, 
started  ages  ago  to  make  men ;  and  despite  of  heaving 
earthquakes,  boiling  oceans,  sinking  continents,  ravaging 
tornadoes,  devouring  monsters,  and  life-destroying  cata- 
clysms, here  we  are,  the  mighty  masters  of  the  world,  and 
here  our  race  will  probably  be  for  millions  of  millenni- 
ums. 

And  what  she  has  done  for  the  race  is  an  indication  of 
what  she  will  do  for  the  individual.  This  universe  is  no 
relentless  mill,  whose  ponderous  jaws  only  open  that  they 
may  receive  and  hopelessly  crush  us,  while  we  are  to  rest 
satisfied  because  our  loss  is  to  be  the  gain  of  our  de- 
scendants.    All  this  work  during  the  ages  was  not  done 


1 86  IS  DARWIN  RIGHT? 

merely  to  produce  man,  and  give  him  infinite  desires  that 
sickness  should  mock,  and  death  extinguish.  Why  is  life 
so  sweet,  and  annihilation  so  terrible?  Why  should 
millions  of  ages  have  been  spent  to  produce  a  being  to 
whom  future  existence  is  so  desirable,  and  then  deny  him 
what  he  of  all  the  world  only  craves?  There  is  a  life 
after  death :  the  past  teaches  it,  the  present  declares  it. 
Not  without  reason  did  the  savage  hunter  of  the  long  ago 
dream  of  a  land  to  which  the  departed  had  gone ;  not  to 
mock  him  did  the  eternal  spirit  place  the  spiritual  intui- 
tion in  his  soul.  What  he  dreamed,  we  have  had  demon- 
strated :  he  had  the  instinct,  we  have  the  knowledge. 
Science  may  seem  to  rob  religion  of  its  charms,  but  it  is 
destined  to  restore  them  a  thousand-fold.  As  it  rises  to 
the  zenith  like  a  sun,  faith  in  miracle  will  depart  like  a 
fog  that  the  morning  drinks  up ;  but  confidence  in  the 
universal,  beneficent,  and  intelligent  operation  of  law 
will  take  its  place.  The  belief  in  irremediable  woe  for 
any  portion  of  humanity  will  vanish ;  and  in  its  place  will 
come  to  all  the  assurance  of  conscious,  continued  exist- 
ence in  a  superior  condition  of  being.  As  out  of  the 
ashes  of  a  burnt-up  world,  in  consequence  of  that  divine 
tendency  which  has  enabled  life  to  conquer  all  enemies, 
to  form  garments  of  loveliness  out  of  the  shroud  of  death, 
and  rainbows  of  hope  out  of  the  tears  of  despair,  there 
has  come  the  fragrance  of  the  violet,  the  beauty  of  the 
rose,  the  song  of  the  poet,  the  lore  of  the  philosopher,  a 


OR,    THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  187 

mother's  love,  and  a  martyr's  virtue,  —  so,  in  the  apparently 
infinite  future  that  lies  before  the  human  soul,  by  that 
same  divine  tendency,  the  vilest  criminals,  "  the  deepest 
sunk  in  guilt  and  sorrow,"  may  rise  and  climb  from 
height  to  height  of  goodness  and  bliss,  ever  looking  up- 
ward, while,  from  still  untrodden  heights,  a  purer  and 
more  perfect  ideal  shall  forever  beckon  them  on. 


INDEX. 


Abbeville,  gravel  beds  of,  87. 

spear  from,  87. 
Adam,  creation  of,  112. 
Adamic  protozoan,  112. 
Agassiz,  on  origin  of  languages,  174. 

on  human  brain,  57. 
Alps,  flasks  taken  to,  by  Tyndall,  24. 
Amblyopsis,  113. 
Amblystoma,   developed    from    axolotl, 

143-145- 
Amoeba,  simplicity  of  structure  of,  13. 
Amphibians,  linking  forms,  62. 
Amphioxus,  a  linking  form,  62. 
Anatomical  similarity,  58-61. 

between  man  and  monkey,  60. 
Ancient  negro,  161. 
Angel  who  set  man  on  the  pillar,  104. 
Animal  layer,  54. 
Animals  in  high  mountain  regions,  33. 

alike  to  the  eye  in  their  egg  state,  47. 
Anthozoa,  not  created,  100. 
Apes,  skulls  of,  92. 
Apple-seeds,  108. 

Apteryx,  rudimentary  wing  bones  of,  69. 
Archeopteryx,  a  linking  form,  63,  105. 
Archeopteryx  macroura,  106. 
Armadillo,  70,  71. 

Atkinson  and  Martineau  letters,  180. 
Australia,  plants  of,  compared  with  those 

of  Europe,  137. 
Australian,  brain  capacity  of,  64. 
Axolotl,  changed   to  amblystoma,    143- 
145- 


Bacteria  in  closed  flasks,  21,  22, 
Bakewell's  sheep,  variation  in,  28. 
Baldwin,  on   age  of  Egyptian   civUiza-> 

tion,  80,  81. 
Bask  language,  172. 
Bastian,  Dr.,  experiments   with  sealed 

flasks,  20. 
Begonia,  113. 
Blind  fish  of  Mammoth  Cave,  35. 

of  Wyandotte  Cave,  37. 
"  Blind  laws,"  43. 
Boas  and   pythons,  rudimentary  limbs 

of,  69. 
Brain,  human,  symmetry  of,  40. 
Brain-capacity  of  quadrumana  and  man, 

64. 
of  eocene  mammals,  129,  130. 
Braintree,  trilobite  of,  139. 
Broca,  Paul,  on  physical  characteristics 

of  early  man,  94. 
on  remains  of  man  in  caves  of  Peri- 

gord,  164. 
Bronze  age,  82,  83. 
Brutal  characteristics  of  man,  91-97. 

Cabbage,  in  the  West  Indies,  33. 
Calaveras  skull,  166. 
Cambrian  age,  organic  beings  of,  122. 
Canioni,  Professor,  experiments  of,  21. 
Cape  of  Good  Hope,  plants  of,  137. 
Carabid  beetle  of  Mammoth  Cave,  36. 
Carbonate   of  lime,    cry-stallizalion    of, 

23.  24- 

189 


190 


INDEX. 


Carboniferous   age,   organic   beings  of, 

126,  127. 
Carter,  Dr.,  on  Naulette  jaw,  95. 
Caucasian,  brain  capacity  of,  64. 
Cauliflower  and  cabbage,  33,  34. 
Cavy,  70,  71. 
Cell  division,  52. 
Cervical    vertebrae    of  man    and    lower 

animals,  60. 
Chain-coral,  140. 

Changes  produced  by  impregnation,  51. 
Chinese  language,  172. 
Chlorostoma  fimbrale,  141. 
Civilization,  age  of,  in  Egypt,  80. 
Clairvoyance,  180. 

Clark,   Professor,  on   production  of  in- 
fusoria, 19. 

on  egg  resemblances,  47. 

on  protozoa,  61. 
Clay  stones,  40. 
Clupea  humilis,  153, 154. 
Cod,  reproductive  powers  of,  42. 
Cohesion,  operation  of,  12,  13. 
Conditions,    improving    since    dawn  of 

life,  38. 
Confucius,  157. 

Crystallization,  on  a  window-pane,  12. 
Crystals,  formation  of,  23. 

repairs  of,  24. 
Ctenomys,  71. 
Cyclonema  bilix,  141. 

Dar^vin  on  first  living  form,  16. 

on   organic   forms   on  Galapagos    Is- 
lands, 74,  75. 
on  life's  commencement,  111-113. 
on   origination   of   new   species,    148, 
149. 
Darwinian  theory  gives  no  clew  to  prog- 
ress, 131. 
Degradation  of  man,  if  created  by  mira- 
cle, 102. 
Deltas  of  Mississippi  and  Ganges,  77. 
Dendrite  on  slate,  13. 
on  chert,  13. 
on  sienite,  13. 


Devonian,  fishes  of,  73, 

age,  organic  beings  of,  125. 
Dinornis,  37. 
Dinosaurs   in  Jurassic    and   cretaceous 

beds,  62. 
Documents  indicating  man's  antiquity, 

79- 
Dogs,  little  variation  of,  150,  151. 
Draper,  J.  W.,  on  production  of  life,  23. 
on  animals  in  egg  state,  47. 

Earth,  age  of,  77. 

Egypt,    a   flourishing    nation   in   Abra- 
ham's time,  79. 

civilization  of,  82, 

stone  age  of,  82. 
Egyptian    representation   of    races     of 
men,  158,  159. 

of  negress,  158,  160. 

language,  171. 
Elephants  in  France  and  England,  86. 
Elm,  reproductive  powers  of,  42. 
Embryo,  human,  56. 
Er.gis  skull,  163. 
Eohippus,  68,  134. 
Eozoon,  74. 

Euplectella,  beauty  of,  177. 
Europe  during  stone  age,  86. 
Excrescences  on  body  of  child,  30,  31. 
E.\ternal     surroundings,    powerless     to 
create,  38. 

Factory,  for  making  men  out  of  granite, 

117. 
Fairies,  babies,  men,  44. 
Fingers  of  crinoids,  59. 
Formation  of  animal  layer,  53. 
Fossils,  confined  to  limited  areas,  98,  99. 

of  Potsdam  sandstone,  99. 
Frere  Abbe,  on  ancient  European  skulls. 

93- 
Frog,  metamorphoses  of,  48. 
Furfooz  skull,  165. 

Galapagos  Islands,  animals  and  plants 
of|  74,  75- 


INDEX. 


191 


Garfield,  discussion  with,  4,  5. 
Gauls,  described  by  Csesar,  31. 
Geological  order  of  development,  49. 

succession,  72-74. 
Glacial  period,  man  in,  86. 
Gosse,  Philip  Henry,  on  infusoria,  18. 
Grasshopper,    wingless,    of    Mammoth 
Cave,  36. 

of  Wyandotte  Cave,  36. 
Gravitation,  operation  of,  12. 
Gregory,  Dr.,  on  clairvoyance,  180. 
Greyhounds,  sent  from  England  to  Mex- 
ico, 33. 

Hands  of  monkeys,  59. 

Hawks  and  eagles,  cared  for,  43. 

Hereditary  transmission,  30-32, 

Hesperornis,  64. 

Hipparion,  67,  68. 

Hooker,  Dr.,  on  variation,  27. 

Horses,  de\eloped  along  many  lines,  69. 

Hottentot  Venus,  156. 

Human  anatomy,  studied  from  skeleton 

of  monkey,  60. 
Human  character  of  embryo,  when  es- 
tablished, 56. 

faculties,  178. 

ovum,  description  of,  50. 
Humboldt,  on  age  of  pyramids,  80. 
Huxley,  opinions  of,  about  production 
of  life,  22. 

on  cause  of  variation,  131,  132. 

on  Engis  skull,  164. 
Hydra,  grows  from  fragment,  113. 

Ichthyornis,  64. 

Incisors,  absence  of  in  ruminants,  66. 

Ideal,  followed  by  nature,  135. 

Indo-European  languages,  168. 

Infusoria,  18-26. 

Insects,  of  Mammoth  Cave,  36. 

of  Devonian,  chirping  organ  of,  175. 
Insular  organic  resemblance,  64. 
Intelligence,  necessary  to  produce  man, 
no. 


Jaws,  human,  of  ape-like  form,  95. 
Jaw  of  Arcy-sur-aube,  96. 

found  at  Ipswich,  96. 

of  La  Naulette,  95. 
Jew's  nose,  30. 
Jurassic  period,  organic  beings  of,  128. 

Kent's  Cave,  time  of  occupancy  by  man, 

86. 

La  Naulette  jaw,  95. 
Labyrinthodon,  track  of,  59. 
Language,  167-175. 

Indo-European,  168. 

Syro-Arabian,  169. 
Languages,  Nilotic  family  of,  171. 
La  Couteur,  Col.,  on  variation  of  wheat 

grains,  27. 
Lepidosiren,  62. 
Leptothrix,  22. 

Leslie,    J.   P.,   on   length  of  historical 
period,  78. 

on  permanency  of  type,  151. 
Life,  distribution  of,  9. 

abounds  where  conditions  are  favora- 
ble, 23. 
Life  after  death,  186. 
Lime,  formation  of,  11. 
Lingula,  ancient  and  modem  compared, 

140. 
Linking  forms,  61-65. 
Lion,  diseased  pelvis  of,  46. 
Littorina  litorea,  141. 
Lizards,  modified  into  snakes,  70. 
Lyell,  writings  of,  3. 

on  cabbage  and  cauliflower,  33,  34- 

on  varieties,  34. 

on  length  of  historical  period,  7S. 

Magnetic  force,  probable  action  of,  65. 
Mammals,  fossil,  of  South  America,  71. 

of  New  Zealand,  72. 
Mammoth  cave,  how  formed,  35. 
Man,  rudimentary'  organs  in.  70. 

of  spiritual  origin,  115-187. 

antiquity  of,  76,  91. 


192 


INDEX, 


Man,  spirit  of,  survives  death,  186. 

made  out  of  dust,  98. 

created  in  image  of  God,  loi. 

not  the  result  of  accident,  109. 

produced  by  intelligent  spirit,  no. 

of  the  pliocene,  130, 131. 

little  changed  by  conditions,  146, 
Manward  progress  of  our  planet,  116- 

133- 
Marcel   de  Serres,  on  skulls  found  in 

Germany,  93. 

Marsupials  of  Australia,  72. 

Maury,  Alfred,  on  language,  170. 

Men,  in  mountain  regions,  33. 

Mesohippus,  134. 

Metamorphosis  of  animals,  46-58. 

Miohippus,  67,  68,  134. 

Missing  link,  103. 

Modification,  32,  39. 

Mollusks  of  Europe  and  America  com- 
pared, 139,  140. 

Monkeys  of  Eocene,  130. 

Mosquito,  metamorphosis  of,  47. 

M  tiller,  on  Indo-European  languages, 
168. 

Multiplicity  of  human  origins,  155. 

Natural  law,  operation  of,  14,  15. 

selection,  41. 

selection,  the  gardener  not   the  cre- 
ator, 41. 
Neanderthal  skull,  162. 
Negro,  ancient,  161. 
New  Zealand,  mammals  of,  72. 

wingless  birds  of,  72. 

seaweeds  of,  137. 
Nilotic  family  of  languages,  171. 
Notornis,  37. 
Nucleus,  52. 
Nucleolus,  52. 

Objections  to  man's  natural  origin,  97, 

no. 
Odontopteryx,  106. 
Opalina,  a  linking  form,  62. 
Organic  distribution,  136. 


Orohippus,  67,  68,  134. 

Our  planet,  formed  by  law,  10. 

Ornithorhynchus,  63. 

Owen,  on  production  of  Ufe,  23. 

on  similarity  between  skeleton  of  man 
and  monkey,  60. 

on  old  coral  polyps,  100. 

Paleontological  resemblance,  70,  71. 

Paleolithic  age  in  Europe,  85. 

Parent  cell,  52. 

Pasteur,  on  production  of  life,  22. 

Pengelly,  on  Kent's  Cave,  86. 

Perigord,  caverns  of,  165. 

Persistency  of  type,  146-155. 

Pillar  on  which  man  stands,  103. 

Platyrrhine  monkeys,  70,  71. 

Pliocene  beds  of  California,  88. 

Pointers  indicating  man's  natural  origin, 
46-58. 

Pointers  indicating  man's  spiritual  ori- 
gin, 116-187. 

Populus  decipiens,  152,  153. 

Prichard,  on  ancient  Britons,  92. 

Primitive  trace,  description  of,  54,  55. 

Proteus,  62. 

Protohippus,  134. 

Protozoa,  61. 

Protozoan,  Adamic,  112,  113. 

Providence,  general  and  special,  42. 

Pterodaclyle,  62,  63. 

Pyramids,  antiquity  of,  79,  80. 

Quatrefages,  on  tails  of  Esquimaux  dogs 

32- 

Rabbits,  reproductive  powers  of,  42. 

Race  development  of  animals,  133-136. 

Rawlinson,  on  language,  171. 

Red  grouse,  42. 

Reptiles,  true,  62. 

Ribot,  on  heredity,  31. 

Roget,  on  human  metamorphosis,  56,  57. 

Root  languages,  number  of,  172. 

Rostan,  on  clairvoyance,  182. 

Royal  Academy  of  Medicime,  181. 


INDEX. 


93 


Rudimentary  organs,  66. 
in  horse,  67, 
in  man,  70. 

Salmons  of  New  Zealand,  138. 
Salt,  crystallization  of,  23. 
Sassafras,  in  cretaceous  beds,  152. 

mirabile,  152. 

officinale,  152. 
Sayce,  on  language,  170. 
SchafT Hansen,    Professor,  on    primitive 

form  of  human  skull,  93. 
Schiodte,  on  blind  animals  in  caves,  34. 
Scincidse,  70. 

Sea-snails,   ancient    and   modern   com- 
pared, 140,  141. 
See-ma-thsian,  156. 
Seps,  70. 

Service-tree  in  Western  Virginia,  33. 
Seti-Menephtha,  tomb  of,  157. 
Sexual  selection,  how  accounted  for,  183. 
Shells,  of  Silurian,  74. 

of  Cambrian,  74. 
Silica,  formation  of,  11. 
Silk-worm,  47,  48. 
Skull  of  Calaveras  County,  88-90. 
Skulls  of  ancient  Britons,  92. 

of  Europeans,  93. 
Sloth,  70,  71. 
Snow  flakes,  14. 

South  Shetland  Islands,  plants  of,  138. 
Species,  new,  formation  of,  107,  io8. 
Spirit  of  the  universe,  109. 
Spiritual  ideals,  114. 

faculties,  179. 
Star-fish,  digits  of,  59. 
Stone  age,  of  Europe,  82,  83. 

in  Switzerland,  83. 
Stone  spear  from  Abbeville,  87. 
Struggle  for  existence,  42. 
Switzerland  in  stone  age,  83. 
Symmetry,  39. 

of  clay  stones,  40. 

of  diseases,  40. 

Tadpole,  kept  in  druggist's  store,  37. 


Tallness,  hereditary,  30. 
Tendency, 28-30. 

to  beauty,  176. 
Terra  del  Fuego,  plants  of,  136, 137. 
Tertiary  age,  129,  130. 
Teste,  M.,  181. 

Thomson  on   beauty  in   mineral   king- 
dom, 176. 
Torulae,  22. 
Tradition,  78. 

Tree,  natural  and  artificial,  16,  17. 
Trilobites  of  Europe  and  America  com- 
pared, 139. 
Tyndall,  on  production  of  life,  22. 

experiments  of,  24,  25, 

Van  Mons,  on  variation  of  grape-seeds, 

27. 
Variation,  26-28. 

not  a  creator,  28. 
Vegetative  layer,  54. 
Vestiges  of  creation,  3. 
Vibriones,  22. 
Virginia  cherry,  33. 
Vitality,  law  of,  17-26. 

Wallace,  remarks  of,  regarding  Basti- 
an's  experiments,  21,  22. 
on  production  of  life,  23. 
Weapons,  on  banks  of  American  streams, 

87. 
Weismann,  on  change  of  axolotl,  144, 

145- 
Whales,  true,  destitute  of  teeth,  69. 
Whitman,  Walt,  on  man's  development, 

118,  119. 
Whitney,  Professor  J.  D.,  on  Calaveras- 

County  skull,  88-90. 
Whitney,  Professor  W.  D.,  on  language, 

170. 
Willson,  Professor,  on  ancient  Briton, 

91,92. 
Wingless  birds  of  New  Zealand,  37. 
Woonsocket,  factory  of,  117. 
Wyman,   experiments    of,  with    sealed 

flasks,  18,  19. 


